Five players could miss Arsenal vs Sunderland as Mikel Arteta gives injury updates

· FootballLondon

Arsenal travel to the Stadium of Light on Saturday evening to take on Sunderland AFC, and will hope for a better result than last season's 2-2 draw on the banks of the River Wear

At least three players will miss Saturday's Premier League clash between Arsenal and Sunderland AFC.

The Gunners make the long trip to Wearside to face the Black Cats at the Stadium of Light, with kick-off set for 8pm.

Mikel Arteta will be hoping that his first-team have learned by their mistakes made on the banks of the River Wear last November, when Sunderland rescued a last-minute 2-2 draw against Arsenal.

While it was Arsenal academy graduate, Dan Ballard, who opened the scoring on that cold night in the North East, Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard tipped the game in the visitors' favour with second-half goals.

Fate had plans to see the points split, however, with Brian Brobbey levelling matters in the final moments with an acrobatic volley past David Raya from close range.

While Arteta would have hoped to have a full-strength squad available for this weekend's encounter, Arsenal are impacted by at least one guaranteed absentee in William Saliba.

The centre-half has missed the entirety of the season so far as a result of a back injury flaring up while he represented France at the World Cup this summer.

The 25-year-old is not expected to return until mid-to-late November, as per reports. However, that hasn't prevented the Premier League champions from thriving this season, utilising the likes of Cristhian Mosquera and Ezri Konsa as playing partners to Gabriel.

However, the club also have a couple of doubts for the fixture, with Arteta touching on the likes of Mosquera and Jurrien Timber.

On the latter, he explained:

> "Let's see, we have another training session, he's been doing really well, he's been training with us now for a few days and he looks in good shape."

On Mosquera, he added:

> "He's been really well, let's see if he can get this game or the next one, it will be around that time, I think."

Arsenal are not the only team carrying injuries, with Sunderland boss Regis Le Bris also missing a number of players from his squad for Saturday's match.

Habib Diarra is expected to be out for up to a month and a half as a result of a hamstring injury sustained against Brentford.

Elsewhere, Romaine Mundle will be sidelined for a couple of months after undergoing surgery on a fresh knee injury.

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