Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has tested COVID positive ahead of a very crucial fixture against Manchester City at the Emirates. The Spaniard will not be available in the dugout for this fixture, and his assistants Albert Stuivenberg and Steve Round will be taking control for this game.
The news was confirmed by Arsenal earlier on Wednesday evening, and it could not have come at a worse time for the club, who just picked up a brilliant 5-0 win over Norwich City. The COVID positive list for the Gunners has gone up drastically. The Spaniard joins Callum Chambers, Cedric Soares, Takehiru Tomiyasu and Ainsley Maitland-Niles to be sidelined by the virus.
“Mikel Arteta will miss our match against Manchester City on New Year’s Day after testing positive for COVID-19. Mikel is isolating in line with Government guidelines and we wish him well,”
the official statement from the club said.
This isn’t the first time the manager has tested positive, having been there before when he took over Arsenal initially. In March 2020, just a few months into his time as the manager of the 13-time first-division champions, Arteta testing positive got a few Arsenal games postponed and eventually, the league was suspended temporarily.
Their previous fixture against Wolves was postponed due to the rising cases in Bruno Lage’s team, but the City fixture is expected to go as per schedule. The coming few weeks will be incredibly crucial for Arsenal’s Champions League aspirations as they have a bunch of tricky fixtures, starting with Manchester City’s visit to North London.
Arsenal currently are in a four-way battle for the fourth Champions League spot in the Premier League, alongside Tottenham, Manchester United and West Ham. They currently are in fourth on the table having played two games more than the Red Devils and Spurs. This battle is expected to go down the wire, with Tottenham looking rejuvenated under new boss Antonio Conte.
Arsenal have not defeated Manchester City in the Premier League since December 2015, and that victory came at the Emirates with Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud scoring for the hosts. The hosts will be desperate to break the deadlock and not lose further ground in their chase for European football.
