Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta lashed out at his side’s hectic schedule as he reacted to the injuries suffered by Declan Rice and Cristhian Mosquera in Wednesday’s victory over Brentford.
A routine 2–0 win saw the Gunners move five points clear at the top of the Premier League standings, but celebrations were short-lived as the reality of the injuried to both Rice and Mosquera sank in.
Mosquera, already deputising for the injured duo of Gabriel and William Saliba, failed to complete the first 45 minutes, while Rice was forced off in the latter stages of the second half. Both players appeared to have suffered muscular injuries which Arteta put down to the relentless nature of Arsenal’s fixture list.
“Now we play Wednesday night, and we have to play Saturday morning as well,” Arteta reflected. “So we can play minutes, but if they can please give us just a little bit more time to recover and to make the well-being of these players a little bit easier, that would be great.
“Probably it’s not one thing, but we can help the players and everybody, the league and everybody, to do what we have to do. Give us another day, especially the teams that are playing so much in Europe. To everybody in general, I think we can do that because we’re going to benefit from that.
“We’ve never had such a schedule at every level, not only in the Premier League, but every competition internationally as well. So we need to try to do that, please.
“It’s not an argument, I think it’s common sense,” he added. “I think it’s not at some point this becomes too much, you know, and the players are not machines. But we have to try to do that when we can.”
