Arsenal suffer triple injury scare ahead of Community Shield vs Man City

The Gunners are set to be without a list of injured players vs Manchester City and three more may be added.

Arsenal are sweating over the fitness of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Declan Rice and Folarin Balogun after the trio missed Thursday’s 5-3 friendly win over Barcelona ahead of the Community Shield against Manchester City in nine days’ time.

Zinchenko has not played since the start of May after picking up a calf injury against Newcastle during the title run-in. It means he has missed the whole of Arsenal’s pre-season, including their tour of the US.

Mikel Arteta hopes Zinchenko will be back soon but faces a race against time to be fit for the clash against his old club at Wembley a week on Sunday. Meanwhile, Rice missed the fixture with Barcelona after picking up a knock in training.

The £105m summer signing started for his new club for the first time on Saturday in the 2-0 loss to Manchester United but is now a doubt for Wednesday’s friendly with Monaco

Promising young striker Balogun, who recently decided to represent the US over England internationally, remained on the bench against United before being left out of the squad entirely against Barcelona. He has featured twice for the Gunners in pre-season but did not train prior to Thursday’s match due to a foot injury.

Speaking to he media after Arsenal’s latest friendly, Arteta explained of Zinchenko: “Alex had a little muscular issue, unfortunately. I think he will be back soon but it’s a shame he hasn’t been with us the whole tour.”

He added: “Dec [Rice] had quite a strong kick in training so we didn’t want to take the risk. He wasn’t really comfortable to train yesterday and we decided not to train. [Balogun] was unavailable. He has a little foot injury and hasn’t been training with us.” 

Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Nicolas Pepe, Cedric Soares and Nuno Tavares are expected to miss the trip to Wembley.

Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola has eased concerns over the fitness of Nathan Ake, who had to be substituted after picking up a knock to his lower leg against Bayern Munich. The Cityboss said the Dutchman is not injured and was taken off as a mere precaution.

“The group is good, no injuries,” said Guardiola. “We have one week in Manchester to train specifically for that final and prepare a little bit better than we can train here.

“It is what it is and what it has been in previous seasons, we always play the Community Shield not in a good condition.”

City wrap up their pre-season tour of Asia against Atletico Madrid on Sunday before returning home to prepare for Arsenal at Wembley the following weekend.