Arsenal see Mohamed Elneny returning to the Arsenal setup but Hector Bellerin is still a major doubt as the Gunners host a resurgent Hull City side.
Arsenal host Hull City in a crunch tie that may have more significance for Arsene Wenger’s side than the Tigers. Marco Silva has converted a struggling bottom-placed side into a formidable-looking team, that has taken 4 points from the last two games – a win against Liverpool and a draw against Manchester United.
Arsenal suffered back-to-back defeats as they were undone by a marauding Chelsea side. But, perhaps the concussion received by Hector Bellerin was more of a blow than the result. Wenger confirmed in the pre-match conference that Bellerin had not practised with the team and was a major doubt for the game.
“ we have the question about Hector Bellerin. He’s going for tests and the process every day and we’ll only know tomorrow if he gets the green light from the medical people to practise or not. At the moment he has not practised.”
Arsenal, though, have Mohamed Elneny return after an almost successful AFCoN campaign with Egypt, with his side undone in the finals by Cameroon. Wenger also touched on the midfielder’s availability and his mental conditioning after the excruciating finals loss.
The manager said,“ From last Saturday we have Elneny back available in the squad. He trained yesterday with the team. He’s fully focused and as always, a fantastic player with a great mentality. He is disappointed that [Egypt] lost in the final but we had a quality session yesterday.”
Arsene Wenger called upon his team to show that Arsenal are a strong collective unit on Saturday but also touched on Marco Silva’s wonderful start to his managerial career with Hull City.
“ He is doing well. There are many top managers in Europe and they all come to England. But I also believe that they played well with Mike Phelan but so many times they were not rewarded by results and they had injuries as well. So overall I think Hull have always played good football.”
Marco Silva has a host of injury concerns to address as well but he takes a reinvigorated Tigers squad to Emirates and a positive result could very well see them rise from the relegation places.
