Injuries arguably cost Arsenal in the Premier League top-four race towards the end of the 2021/22 season and despite the campaign ending over a week ago, things haven’t improved too much on that front.
On Monday afternoon it was announced by the England national team that Gunners defender Benjamin White had withdrawn from the squad named by Gareth Southgate for this month’s UEFA Nations League triple-header against Hungary, Germany and Italy because of injury.
Having missed four of Arsenal’s last five Premier League games of the season with a hamstring problem, this may have been a precautionary measure to ensure White has fully recovered in time to take part in the club’s pre-season programme which gets underway within the next month.
There is some concern over White’s usual central defensive partner.
As reported in Brazil, Gabriel Magalhaes was absent from the Selecao’s training session on Tuesday having felt pain in the posterior muscle of his left thigh the day before and subsequently missed the friendly against South Korea on Thursday afternoon.
This would have been a blow to Gabriel as he was looking forward to finally making his senior Brazil debut during the current international window after being an unused substitute on four previous occasions.
Brazil do have further games against Japan and Argentina in the next week, so it remains to be seen what the situation is regarding Gabriel’s fitness as ideally, Mikel Arteta will want both of his regular centre-backs to be raring to go for the start of pre-season training.
With that said, there is some good news on the injury front for Arsenal as Kieran Tierney is on course to be back in full training by the end of June after being out of action since the beginning of April.