13 Arsenal players missing from training pictures after Mikel Arteta injury updates

• 

• Arsenal
• Arsenal News
• Arsenal training

Arsenal face Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-finals this weekend, with Mikel Arteta facing multiple injury dilemmas

Mikel Arteta appeared to work with a small Arsenal group in training on Friday as a staggering 13 players were not spotted in pictures uploaded to the club website. The Gunners return to action tomorrow evening with an FA Cup quarter-final against Southampton, but Arteta could be without several key players.

The Arsenal boss was coy in his pre-match press conference but did confirm that Eberechi Eze, Piero Hincapie and Noni Madueke would be unavailable. The trio were unsurprisingly not in the training pictures from Friday's session with Hincapie and Madueke suffering injuries over the international break.

Eze picked up a calf problem before the two-week domestic pause with Jurrien Timber also missing games - that included the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City - last month due to a minor issue.

Arteta confirmed the latter and Martin Odegaard are in contention to feature against Southampton, but neither were captured in the images uploaded to the club's website.

FOLLOW OUR ARSENAL FB PAGE! Latest Gunners news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page

William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Martin Zubimendi, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka look to be managing issues after all of them withdrew from international duty. None of those five players were captured in the training snaps, with Arteta not giving anything away when asked if any could feature.

He said: "You will see. I continue the speculation so you can do it, and you can judge it afterwards. If what I said was right or do I have to maybe change and delete and write something else?"

Leandro Trossard has also also been dealing with an injury and was subsequently nowhere to be seen in those official club photos. The injured Mikel Merino and young defender Marli Salmon, who has appeared in some senior squads and also played 62 minutes in the FA Cup win over Mansfield Town, were also absent.

Myles Lewis-Skelly, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli and Max Dowman were all prominently featured in the 34 photos that appeared on Arsenal's website, with the quartet all likely to start on Saturday evening.

Injury problems make the majority of Arteta's decisions relatively simple, but he is facing a pretty big call between David Raya and Kepa Arrizabalaga.

The latter was at fault for City's first goal at Wembley which somewhat threw into doubt whether or not he will continue playing in cup competitions.

When specifically asked if the keeper who starts tomorrow will be Spanish and have a name that ends in A, Arteta replied: "I think tomorrow the goalkeeper is European, is under 32, right-footed and speaks at least two languages."

Arguably the bigger games for Arsenal arrive next week with a Champions League quarter-final first leg against Sporting CP. Premier League fixtures against Bournemouth and Manchester City follow either side of the European knockout second leg.