Mikel Arteta has suggested the Premier League should consider expanding their 25-man squads or allowing the use of 10 substitutes after Gabriel Jesus and Thomas Partey were ruled out for several weeks through injury.
Jesus limped out of Tuesday’s Champions League win at Sevilla and tests have subsequently confirmed the Brazil striker will be sidelined until after next month’s international break while Partey suffered a thigh problem in training ahead of that game.
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Partey will undergo further examinations as the club determine the full extent of the problem and speaking on Friday ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League home game against Sheffield United, Arteta said: “[Partey] has got a muscle injury and we expect him to be out for a few weeks. We don’t know the extent of it still, he has more tests today. He got that injury in training, with the last kick of the ball. Very unfortunate.
“Again [on Jesus], the scans show that there is a muscle injury. We might miss him for a few weeks again. With Gabi I cannot give you any time frame because he always surprises us. He felt something there, it was a really awkward action. It’s true that he had quite a lot of load in those games playing with the national team and with us which he hasn’t done in a long, long time. That’s really bad news for us.”
Arteta has previously voiced concerns over the demands an increased fixture schedule is having on player welfare, reiterating a desire to potentially see more than 25 senior players registered per team in the Premier League and Champions League as is currently allowed. The Spaniard also suggested the game’s governing bodies may explore alterations to the rules after the Premier League became the last of Europe’s major divisions to allow five substitutes on a permanent basis for the 2022-23 season.
“If we have more games, more competitiveness and physically the standards are higher — by playing more minutes — we have to do that [increase the 25-man squad size] or instead of five subs, we have 10,” he said. “The five subs is now something normal but it was a big fight to go from three to five. I cannot imagine the game in the conditions we are in today after last year and the World Cup without five subs, it would be so difficult.
“If the calendar extends, for sure we would have to think of not dropping the quality. The only way to do it is players have to have certain availability and you need players to pick. It’s about everybody. When is this going to stop and how long will it take for us to make the right decisions. The laws will change and probably our capacity to do things during games will change as well. We will have to adapt, for sure.”
Arsenal have suffered with a series of muscular injuries this season with Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard all suffering similar issues this season. But Arteta played down any suggestion of an issue with the club’s training regime.
“There are periods sometimes were you get really unlucky, and sometimes things that are really difficult to prevent,” he said. “When you are loading players more and there are players who haven’t done it in the past that risk increases. We try to manage every single thing to control it, but there are things that are difficult to do and we have to accept that and we have to accept that.”