And, speaking in a pre-match press conference on Monday, Arteta has now confirmed the news that he will miss “many weeks” with a hamstring tear.
On Saka’s injury, Arsenal boss Arteta told reporters: “It’s not looking good. He’s going to be out for many weeks.”
On whether he feared the winger could miss the rest of the season, Arteta said: “No [there’s no fear]. I’m very optimistic he’ll be back before the end of the season.”
When asked if Saka’s injury was as a result of playing too much, the Arsenal boss added: “It’s probably an accumulation of a number of seasons. Bukayo and Declan [Rice], they’ve played over 130 games in two seasons so what’s going to happen in the second one, the third one, the fourth one? If that continues the same way, it’s probably unsustainable.
“And we have to find ways to physically turn them into monsters. That they can cope with anything. The fact that you play and recover is not a good pattern because you don’t train. And the body needs to train. You start to lose a lot of factors in the physical aspect that’s key to performance.
“That’s a challenge which, OK, we’re trying to find ways to do it.”
When asked how Saka responded to being injured, Arteta replied: “He was gutted.
“You can tell he’s not been injured [seriously before] because he was really emotional, he was really down. We need to lift him up because he’s part of what we do. It’s part of his job, and he will be fine, but he’s going to need a few days.
“He’s going to immediately realise that he’s so important in that dressing room. His energy level, his body language, the way he communicates with the rest of the team, because it’s the only way at the moment that he can help, so he better do that well.”
Put to the Arsenal boss that Gabriel Martinelli could fill the Saka void, Arteta responded: “Yeah, that’s the first one we went through, especially because he’s played there before.
“He played the last match there against Everton and the last match of the season. He did really well. He did really well the other day, he scored a goal and created an assist and is a good option to have.”
On other players who could play on the right wing, Arteta continued: “Gabby [Jesus] has played there. Ethan [Nwaneri] has played there, Leo [Trossard] can play there in relation to how that unit moves. Kai [Havertz] can play there, asking him different things.
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