Six players could miss Liverpool vs Arsenal as huge injury return hint dropped

Arsenal and Liverpool are dealing with vastly different injury situations ahead of their huge Premier League clash on Sunday afternoon. The two title rivals have also experienced very different starts to the season with the champions needing late winners to win goal-fests while the Gunners have kept clean sheets in both of their victories.

In the second of those win, which came against Leeds United at Emirates Stadium last Saturday, Mikel Arteta lost both Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard to injury.

football.london understands that both issues are not as bad as first feared and while Arteta has confirmed Saka will definitely be absent for the trip to Anfield with a hamstring issue, there is one positive for Arsenal.

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"No, no surgery," he said on Saka during his Friday press conference. "It's not as bad as the previous one. Obviously, very unfortunate to kick it off, he's on the other side. It's an action that requires full power from him. Then he clashed with the opponent, he needs to change pace again. And he felt something, so it will be out for a couple of weeks."

Odegaard meanwhile, suffered an issue in his shoulder with an imminent return much more likely, though the Gunners boss was unable to confirm if he would be able to play this weekend.

"We don't know yet," he admitted on Odegaard. "He hasn't trained yet. And if he does, it will be tomorrow. He's doing everything he can, we're doing everything that we can to make him available, but we'll have to wait and see tomorrow."

The prognosis on Kai Havertz is not as good however, with a club statement on Thursday evening confirming that he has undergone surgery.

"I think it will be weeks, but I don't know how many months," Arteta revealed. "Very unfortunate, very sad for him. I think he did tremendously well to recover from the previous one. He's never had an injury before. And suddenly this happens, but this is our profession, our football. We need to live with that.

"Obviously, we lose another big player for many, many weeks. But it was the right thing to do. The doctors advised and I think he was very convinced at the end that it was the quickest and the best way to resolve that issue.

Ben White and Christian Norgaard have also missed games already with Arteta a little bit more optimistic regarding the duo possibly returning.

"So that's another two that we don't know yet," he said. "Again tomorrow we have another day, let's see how they evolve. And this is a chance to keep them involved in the game."

As for Liverpool, Arne Slot also has some injury problems to contend with following their chaotic 3-2 win over Newcastle United earlier this week. Jeremie Frimpong missed the game and is expected to remain out until after the international break with a hamstring injury.

Alexis Mac Allister also missed the trip to St James' Park but Slot hinted at a potential return for the Argentine this weekend when giving a general squad fitness update

"I think the positive is [Conor] Bradley has trained the whole week. Mac Allister started training again. So no injuries. Virgil [Van Dijk] is also OK." The latter was on the end of a reckless tackle from Anthony Gordon, which he was shown a red card for, while Bradley came on for the final 10 minutes after not featuring since late July.