Arteta’s update on Odegaard, Havertz and Timber

Mikel Arteta has issued an update on the fitness of our first team squad ahead of our Premier League clash with London rivals Fulham on Saturday.

The boss was speaking to the media on Friday afternoon at the Sobha Realty Training Centre, and reported that there were no new concerns after Wednesday’s trip to Atletico Madrid:

“I think (everyone is fine), so let’s see how everybody is tomorrow morning,” Mikel said, “obviously, we haven’t been able to train much, so tomorrow we’ll have the final update.”

After Martin Odegaard was brought off in the second half at the Metropolitano, the boss was asked whether or not the skipper would be fit for Saturday’s game, to which he said, “let’s see.”

But while Martin is in contention to feature this weekend, the game will come too soon for both defender Jurrien Timber and forward Kai Havertz, who suffered an injury against Newcastle in our last Premier League game.

“Yeah Kai and Jurrien will be out,” the boss reported. On Kai, he said: “he’s been a huge miss – we’re talking about one of the most important attacking players we have, and he’s been out for seven or eight months.

“Unfortunately, he’s not been the only one with long-term injuries and players have been missed. The team has shown an incredible capacity to overcome these kinds of scenarios and still be very, very competitive.

“The focus right now has to be on availability and performance, and Kai is desperate to be on the pitch as quickly as possible. Hopefully for Atletico he will be available, and he’s pushing every boundary to achieve that.”

With a deep run in the Champions League and a Premier League title race to contest, we’ve had a frantic schedule in 2026.

One of the effects of such a packed calendar is less time for training, something that has led Mikel to adapt his planning before games.

“First of all, (it’s about) recovery and clarity on what we have to do, what we expect from the opponent and especially what we have to do to take the game where we want it, to then win it.

“When you don’t have much time on the pitch, you have to do it in other ways – other methods, a lot of collective messages and especially a lot of individual meetings to achieve what we want on the pitch.”