Arsenal are handed a defensive boost ahead of their Europa League group stage clash against Sporting Lisbon this Thursday, as defensive duo of Nacho Monreal and Sokratis Papastathopoulos took part in full training with the squad after missing out on multiple fixtures recently.
In fact, Nacho Monreal has not represented the Gunners in last five matches forcing Granit Xhaka to fill in at left back followed by Sead Kolasinac (only against Liverpool) for the Spainard. Meanwhile, Sokratis has not featured for Arsenal since their 1-0 win away victory against Sporting a couple of weeks back but it looks like he will be available for the reverse fixture this Thursday.
Both of them were pictured training on Wednesday ahead of Arsenal’s busy schedule as they welcome Wolverhampton Wanderers at the weekend followed by facing Bournemouth and Vorskla Poltava on the road.
Here’s Nacho doing some work away from the main group this morning. pic.twitter.com/7Tq6VBkcJF
— Charles Watts (@charles_watts) November 7, 2018
Arsenal confirmed that both of them will be assessed ahead of the fixture against Sporting. Though Unai Emery confirmed that Nacho will play no part against Sporting, in the pre-match press conference.
“At the moment we continue to have injuries for Mavropanos and Koscielny, he is getting better training with us. Nacho we are taking precaution with. We don’t want to repeat the same injury. he is starting to training but not doing all with us. He is injured for tomorrow.” – Unai Emery said when asked about the team news ahead of Europa League clash against Sporting Lisbon.
