Izuchukwu OkosiArsenal manager Mikel Arteta spoke to the media on Friday ahead of his team’s first game of the season in the Premier League against Nottingham Forest and rules out the possible involvement of Brazilian striker Gabriel Jesus.
Fielding questions from the battery of football writers at the Emirates, Arteta revealed that all but two of his players, Mohamed Elneny and the aforementioned Jesus, are all fit and rearing for Saturday’s clash with Steve Cooper’s men.
Jesus was part of the Gunners’ pre season friendlies of Germany and USA but a relapse of the injury he sustained in December during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar necessitated that he underwent a procedure on the same knee that troubled him.
On that occasion, the player was sidelined for three months but the latest setback is not thought to be anywhere near as serious.
However the north Londoners are cautious about rushing the 26-year-old back to action rather too soon.
“It’s a bit early still, it’s only less than two weeks since his operation,” said Arteta on Friday.
“He’s doing really well to be fair and next week hopefully he can start to start doing some activity but it’s something that we want to be cautious and make sure that he comes back in the right way.”
The trio of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jorginho and Reiss Nelson were all spotted in training last week and are deemed to be close to making their returns to action.
The game against Nottingham Forest kicks off at 12.30pm Nigerian time.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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