Arteta confirms Arsenal star defender may be out of season

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Mikel Arteta fears his star defender may be ruled out until the end of the season.

Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba suffered injuries in the first half of Arsenal’s Europa League exit on Thursday and were not part of the squad that defeated Crystal Palace at the Emirates on Sunday.

The Arsenal boss has given injury update on both players, but feared the Japanese international may not play again this season.

Arteta said on Tomiyasu:

“We don’t know, obviously the doctor is assessing him. We’ve had one assessment, they need to have another assessment tomorrow, but it’s not looking good, that’s for sure. Looking at Tomi, he’s not someone who exaggerates things. He was really concerned straight away, and we are concerned.”

Rob Holding replaced Saliba in the starting xi on Sunday and impressed but Arteta is hoping for better news for the French international.

“We hope Willy is going to be better news but again we have to wait until tomorrow to understand a better picture. We have lost players – we lost Gabby for four months, we lost Thomas for one and a half months, we lost Alex Zinchenko for one and a half months, we lost Elneny for six to eight months, now we lost Eddie and now we lost Tomiyasu and Saliba. Everybody has to give more. It’s not a secret, if we want to maintain that level, everyone has to step in, give more and Rob is a great example of what we needed today.”

READ MORE: ‘We showed determination’ – Arteta

Arteta wants the players to look after themselves during the international break and is confident they’ll return unharmed.

“That they really look after themselves in this period. I will try to look after the players that have to remain with us here and that they come back with the same mindset that they have before so that we can go into Leeds which is the only important game we have right now and try to win that one.

“I want to think positively. They’re going to play games and they have to do it in the way that they do it here or better, especially when they’re representing their country. We are in contact with all of them, they know how to look after them and we hope that everything is going to work out.”