{"id":94126,"date":"2023-10-04T00:25:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T00:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stopsmokingway.com\/?p=94126"},"modified":"2023-10-04T00:25:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T00:25:25","slug":"mikel-arteta-says-bukayo-sakas-injury-doesnt-look-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stopsmokingway.com\/soccer\/mikel-arteta-says-bukayo-sakas-injury-doesnt-look-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta says Bukayo Saka&apos;s injury &apos;doesn&apos;t look good&apos;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Mikel Arteta says Bukayo Saka&#8217;s injury &#8216;doesn&#8217;t look good&#8217; but Arsenal boss defends his decision to play winger ahead of Man City clash despite knocks in recent games<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bukayo Saka was substituted with an injury during Arsenal&#8217;s defeat to Lens<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Englishman also had to be taken off in his previous two matches\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Click HERE to listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport&#8217;s &#8216;It&#8217;s All Kicking Off<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mikel Arteta has defended his decision to play Bukayo Saka as the Arsenal winger limped out of their Champions League defeat to Lens but admits that it doesn&#8217;t look good at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners had taken the lead through Gabriel Jesus but Adrien Thomasson levelled following a David Raya error before Saka hobbled out of the game.<\/p>\n<p>Lens would go on to win 2-1 courtesy of a second-half strike from Elye Wahi but it was the injury to Saka that will have concerned Arteta more.<\/p>\n<p>Reigning Premier League champions Manchester City visit the Emirates Stadium in five days and Saka&#8217;s involvement is now in doubt with the England forward having been forced off in the last three games.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Norwegian journalist\u00a0Arilas Ould-Saada after the game, Arteta said: &#8216;it doesn&#8217;t look good.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/00\/76135677-0-image-a-23_1696375139605.jpg\" height=\"399\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Bukayo Saka was forced off with an injury once again as Arsenal lost to Lens on Tuesday<\/p>\n<p>Asked later if he regretted picking Saka following his issues against both Tottenham and Bournemouth, Arteta replied: &#8216;no. It was a knock that he had the other day and he was perfectly fine. It was a backheel, an action that can produce that kind of injury.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Let&#8217;s see what the extent of it is and afterwards it&#8217;s too late. The last few were more knocks than anything else.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He hasn&#8217;t really missed games. We gave him a break against Brentford (in the Carabao Cup) last week and that was all.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He tried to backheel a ball in the first half and felt something muscular. He felt uncomfortable to carry on so we had to take him off.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We don&#8217;t know anything more. It was big enough not to allow him to continue to play the game and that&#8217;s a worry for us.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He was really looking forward to playing like every player. It was a big Champions League night. I painted a picture and the type of scenario we were going to face today and they all knew about it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But this Champions League is so difficult to win away from home. Today we take a big lesson.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/00\/76138511-12591091-image-a-44_1696375558690.jpg\" height=\"448\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Arteta&#8217;s admitted it doesn&#8217;t look good but defended his decision to play the Englishman<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/00\/76131423-12591091-Mikel_Arteta_left_will_he_hoping_his_injury_is_not_major_with_Sa-a-25_1696375226336.jpg\" height=\"436\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Mikel Arteta (left) will he hoping his injury is not major, with Saka being pivotal for the Gunners this season\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The defeat ended a forgettable 24 hours for Arsenal after bad weather grounded Arteta and his players at Luton airport for five hours on Monday as their journey to France was delayed.<\/p>\n<p>Now their hopes of avoiding a bumpy ride in qualifying for the knockout stages have also suffered a setback after a turbulent night at a rocking Stade Bollaert-Delelis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;No, let&#8217;s not put excuses,&#8217; Arteta said when asked if the preparations for the game had impacted on a poor team performance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;First of all, congratulations to Lens. They are a really good side. Really well coached. We knew it was going to be a really tough match.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;In the boxes we had four or five chances we didn&#8217;t put away and we didn&#8217;t defend the boxes well enough.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s true there were moments in the second half we struggled to be more threatening in the final third and find spaces.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;They defended with those numbers really good. That&#8217;s something to take for the next game.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/00\/76132795-12591091-image-a-26_1696375255188.jpg\" height=\"428\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The Gunners suffered their first defeat of the season in Wednesday&#8217;s Champions League tie<\/p>\n<p>Lens had started the season slowly but won their two Ligue 1 games leading into a first Champions League home game in 21 years and defender Kevin Danso was delighted with the outcome.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We gave it our all today in front of our own fans,&#8217; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It was a difficult game, Arsenal had a lot of quality and made us sit back really deep, but we kept defending and kept our concentration. Luckily we won the game.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;At home we know how strong we are, in front of our fans. That&#8217;s what we always try to do: win at home. I&#8217;m a bit gutted about the clean sheet, but we&#8217;ll take the three points definitely.&#8217;<\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/08\/02\/636x90_facebook_ad_sport.png\" width=\"636\" height=\"90\"><br \/>\nSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12591091\/Mikel-Arteta-says-Bukayo-Sakas-injury-doesnt-look-good-Arsenal-boss-defends-decision-play-winger-ahead-Man-City-clash-despite-knocks-recent-games.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Arteta says Bukayo Saka&#8217;s injury &#8216;doesn&#8217;t look good&#8217; but Arsenal boss defends his decision to play winger ahead of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mikel Arteta says Bukayo Saka&amp;apos;s injury &amp;apos;doesn&amp;apos;t look good&amp;apos; - stopsmokingway<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stopsmokingway.com\/soccer\/mikel-arteta-says-bukayo-sakas-injury-doesnt-look-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mikel Arteta says Bukayo Saka&amp;apos;s injury &amp;apos;doesn&amp;apos;t look good&amp;apos; 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