Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta gave an update on defender Kieran Tierney, who was out injured on Saturday night. The defender suffered his injury during warm-ups ahead of the win over West Ham United.
The North London club emerged as 2-1 victors, thanks to a late goal from Eddie Nketiah. They opened the scoring when Alexandre Lacazette headed home a pass received from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Tierney was originally named in the starting XI, but was soon replaced by Sead Kolasinac after picking up a late knock. There were widespread worries that his injury problems from last season had returned.
However, Arteta gave an update that quickly eased those fears. Speaking to Arsenal’s official website after the game, the manager confirmed that the defender was just fine and it was only a muscular discomfort that had forced him out of the game.
“Kieran is fine. He had a little muscular discomfort in the last few days. He tried today and worked in the warm-up but he wasn’t feeling comfortable today.
“Well, we could not control it. We believed that he was going to be fit but during the warm-up, in the last 10 minutes, he said he wasn’t feeling OK. We had to make a decision. We were prepared just in case and Kola came on and had a good game.”
The North Londoners had to reshuffle the squad as Kolasinac was brought on. West Ham gave a good fight and for most of the second half it looked as though the Hammers would run away with the game, but the Emirates club eventually prevailed.
Both the strikers got a goal today with Lacazette and Nketiah getting in on the act. The latter will be particularly happy to have gotten the winner so late in the game. He will be hoping that his performance is enough to get him the start for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup clash against Leicester City.
It will be interesting to see if Arteta goes with a strong team for the Cup tie.
He will be happy with the spirit shown by his players today as they didn’t let their heads drop even after playing catch-up for the second half. The focus can now shift to the Cup tie in midweek where it should be a challenging game at Leicester.