Soccer
Pair of Arsenal regulars 'not ready yet' for Champions League clash against Sporting CP
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Arsenal look to put a couple of disappointing recent results behind them when they face Sporting CP in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals on Tuesday, but they'll have to do so without a pair of regulars in the starting lineup.
Gunners manager Mikel Arteta confirmed on Monday that Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber will miss the crucial European encounter due to injuries suffered before the recently completed international break, with neither man having joined up with his respective national team.
"They're having trouble, they're not ready yet," Arteta said of Saka and Timber. "Let's see, hopefully they're going to be ready for the weekend [against Bournemouth], if everything goes well, and that's a massive boost because in recent days we've lost so many important players and that's something that we need to change immediately."
Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
The Gunners are in desperate need of a morale boost after losing to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final on March 22 and following that up with an FA Cup quarter-final exit at the hands of EFL Championship side Southampton over the weekend. The looming matches against Sporting represent a possible turning point for the suddenly under-fire North London club, who continue to lead the Premier League title race and can advance to the final four of the Champions League with an aggregate victory over their Portuguese opponents over the next eight days.
For Arteta, that means getting his players to shut out the noise about recent failures and collectively focusing on the remaining prizes still in play.
"In football, from the first game of the season, that's going to be questioned: What about Arsenal this season?" he said. "It's been like this for the last nine months and that's going to continue, that's never going to change when you play at this level for this club.
"There's always going to be a question mark and that's it. You have to live the present, you have to deliver it every day. You cannot pick the games, you cannot pick the moments or the actions. It's every action, every game, every moment.
"That's the standard that we set and that's part of identity and it's part of this football club."
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