{"id":3250,"date":"2026-04-07T12:23:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2026-04-07T12:23:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:23:46","slug":"arteta-confirms-key-duo-to-miss-sporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/?p=3250","title":{"rendered":"Arteta confirms key duo to miss Sporting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_65\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber will miss Arsenal\u2019s tip to Sporting CP in the Champions League tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Arsenal face Sporting in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final this evening. The North Londoners are looking for a response after successive defeats in the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, either side of the international break.<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal will be without Saka and Timber, who Arteta revealed in his pre-match press conference are not ready to feature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, they\u2019re having trouble, they\u2019re not ready yet. Let\u2019s see, hopefully they\u2019re going to be ready for the weekend, if everything goes well, and that\u2019s a massive boost because in recent days we\u2019ve lost so many important players and that\u2019s something that we need to change immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s better news on Gabriel, who has been passed fit. The Brazilian was substituted during the weekend defeat at Southampton but has recovered. Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard and William Saliba also took part in Monday\u2019s training session.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0Arsenal boss Arteta leans on Gyokeres for Sporting scoop<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See more \u2013\u00a0Arteta confident Arsenal can handle scrutiny after cup exits<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FootyFaithful\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thefootballfaithfull\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCUgN0WQEhxRbfTdlbkEG7zQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber will miss Arsenal\u2019s tip to Sporting CP in the Champions League tonight. Arsenal face Sporting in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final this evening. The North Londoners are looking for a response after successive defeats in the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, either [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}