William Saliba breaks Arsenal injury silence with clear message before Nottingham Forest clash

William Saliba has issued a clear message on social media ahead of Arsenal's return to Premier League action vs Nottingham Forest this weekend. The Gunners centre-back has remained at London Colney over the September international break after picking up an injury.

"He twisted his ankle during the warm-up and he came in and he said that he believed that he could carry on and play but he strayed away in the first two actions," Mikel Arteta revealed in a press conference. "I could see that he couldn't cope and we had to get him out, unfortunately."

Saliba managed just a few minutes at Anfield in the defeat to Liverpool and - although Arsenal were beaten - his replacement Cristhian Mosquera barely put a foot wrong. Arteta has already been forced to turn to a few players perhaps not part of his strongest XI in Mikel Merino and Noni Madueke.

That was because both Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard suffered injuries the previous weekend, against Leeds United, although the latter was able to make the bench and come on for the final 20 minutes.

Saka, meanwhile, is expected to miss most of Arsenal's matches this month, with French outlet L'Equipe claiming Saliba will be absent for the next few weeks which makes it likely he is unavailable for big Premier League games against Manchester City and Newcastle United.

France have coped in his absence as evidenced by World Cup qualification wins over Ukraine and Iceland with a partnership of Ibrahima Konate and Dayot Upamecano deployed.

Saliba has since offered his reaction to the 2-1 victory over Iceland in his first social media message since getting injured as he reposted France's full-time graphic to his Instagram story with three fire and two thumbs-up emojis.

Assuming Saliba misses the next five games in all competitions, Arteta has a plethora of options at his disposal including Piero Hincapie, Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori, although the latter duo are preferred at full-back.

For the majority of those games, it will likely be Mosquera and Gabriel Magalhaes that start with the duo expected to be partners again when Forest visit Emirates Stadium this Saturday lunchtime. There is some doubts surrounding Gabriel though as he has to travel back from South America.

At the very least, neither he or Gabriel Martinelli played for Brazil against Bolivia in difficult conditions with their stadium at an altitude 4,088m above sea level.

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