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Team news: 23-year-old Arsenal star misses crucial Man Utd game along with 3 others

By on March 8, 2019

Arsenal need to get over our Europa League embarrassment quickly as we’ve got a huge Premier League clash with Manchester United on Sunday afternoon to worry about.

We crashed to a disappointing 3-1 defeat to Rennes in the first leg of our Europa League last-16 tie last night which saw us collapse after Sokratis was sent off while leading 1-0 just before half time.

Unai Emery must pick the players up and get them focussed on this weekend’s game as United head to north London sitting one point above us in fourth place in the table.

Defeat would make it extremely difficult for Arsenal to finish in the top four and with our Europa League hopes also hanging by a thread, we could be starring at another season without Champions League football if things don’t go our way over the next week.

Unfortunately Arsenal will be without Lucas Torreira against Man Utd as the midfielder starts a three-game suspension following his harsh sending off against Tottenham last Saturday afternoon.

Considering Danny Rose got away with a much worse tackle shortly before Torreira was given his marching orders, it’s no wonder Arsenal appealed the decision but unsurprisingly the FA refused to overturn the red card.

The 23-year-old will now miss the games with Man Utd, Newcastle and Everton which will be a big blow so Matteo Guendouzi is expected to line-up alongside Granit Xhaka in the middle of the park this weekend.

Emery has a much tougher decision to make at right-back as Hector Bellerin remains out with a knee injury. The Arsenal boss clearly doesn’t fancy Ainsley Maitland-Niles at right-back as he’s been overlooked for Shkodran Mustafi in the past two games.

Stephan Lichtstiener and Carl Jenkinson didn’t even make the trip to France on Thursday night so it will be interesting to see who Emery goes with at right-back against Man Utd.

Rob Holding and Danny Welbeck are obviously also on the sidelines as they continue to recover from serious injuries so we’ll be without four players for the visit of United this weekend but the squad is generally in good shape.

A team news update on Arsenal.com confirmed we have no fresh injury concerns to worry about:

Lucas Torreira
Suspended following red card against Tottenham Hotspur (a).

Hector Bellerin
Left knee. Recovering after surgery.

Rob Holding
Left knee. Recovering after surgery.

Danny Welbeck
Right ankle. Recovering after surgery.