"We are still assessing him, it doesn’t look bad at all," he said. "He was much better than expected, so hopefully he’ll be fine."
That said, if the Brazilian does not appear ready for Newcastle and with Calafiori also out, Mikel Arteta has some decisions to make. William Saliba's return does present Arteta with an option to use the Frenchman as the left-sided centre-half.
Despite usually playing on the right and Arteta preferring to have natural-footed players on their respective side, Saliba has played plenty of games at a high level on the left. This is his current position for the French national side when he plays alongside Liverpool's Ibrahima Konate.
White, Timber, Jakub Kiwior, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Thomas Partey and Oleksandr Zinchenko are the other available options to help Arteta craft his back four for the revenge mission on Tyneside. The Gunners were beaten in controversial circumstances last season and will want to remedy that.
Saliba has also partnered with Dayot Upamecano for France, again playing on the left. Didier Deschamps has been very complimentary of the Arsenal man and believes in his quality to play the role.
"They have 120 minutes together for the France national team, it's not a lot," he said in. June. "But they have this ability to be very solid in one-on-one [situations], even if there were some clearances that they could improve on, they exuded a lot of strength and calmness. We needed that against [Austria]."
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