Arsenal travel to Lisbon to face Sporting as European competition return this week. The Gunners come into the fixture full of confidence as they look to increase their winning run to eleven.
The defensive trio of Nacho Monreal, Sead Kolasinac and Sokratis Papastathopoulos were absent from Arsenal’s match day squad at the weekend against Leicester. Unai Emery will be hopeful they return for by far the toughest test in Europe this campaign.
Stephan Lichtensteiner, who originally is a right-back was handed a rare start on the left back position with both the first choice left-backs missing out with minor problems.
Nacho Monreal withdrew from the squad with hamstring problems while Kolasinac also missed out with minor knock.
Sokratis came from international break with an ankle injury suffered while serving Greece last week.
There is a chance that all of them might return against Sporting on Thursday, but at the same time Unai wants his squad well rested ahead of upcoming busy schedule.
“Yesterday was a very bad day for our injuries because we lost two in the same position like Sead Kolasinac and Nacho Monreal,” Emery told the press after the Leicester win.
“They were in training with a small problem, but we did the group for today with both but this morning the news is they are not good to play.
“We had another player to help us like Lichtsteiner today and Xhaka – he played 30 minutes at left-back – but for us, for our balance it’s better Nacho or Sead are OK to play in this position and we are going to look at how they are for the next matches, but I hope they can play on Thursday or shortly afterwards
“Sokratis, he trained yesterday. I think he can stay for Thursday and we are going to look because now with a lot of matches in a few days it’s important the players get the good preparation.
“To give them moments to rest and to prepare for the matches.”
