Arteta concerned over Saka’s durability as forward faces possible six-week absence

Arteta: ‘We need to understand how to manage his load’

Max Dowman could play against Everton on Saturday

Mikel Arteta has expressed concern over Bukayo Saka’s robustness after a series of injuries to the forward in the past year and as he awaits further news on how long he will be out for with a thigh issue.

Saka is set for an MRI scan after limping off in the 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich in the Champions League, with Arteta revealing the 25-year-old had “quite a lot of fluid in the area so it was difficult to understand the extent of the injury”. Saka will definitely miss Saturday’s game against Evertonand, it is understood, Arsenal fear it could be a grade-two tear that could potentially keep him out for up to six weeks.

Saka missed a large portion of last season due to hamstring, hip and achilles tendon injuries having also been sidelined by another hamstring issue in 2024-25. In total, he has had 11 different injuries since September 2023 and Arteta insisted that he has been trying to ease his workload as a result. “It’s certainly been different in the last year or so,” the Spaniard said when asked if Saka remains robust enough to start every match. “The demands that we are putting on every player are immense. The amount of games, the intensity of those matches, the international competitions, the times as well between games are getting narrower.

“Bukayo against Lille [in the Champions League last week] didn’t start the game because we knew what was happening. We have to play three times in less than six days. And especially when the games are so demanding, until the last minute you are there, you are chasing the game, you want to win. The necessity is to win every game, so we know that. So we are preparing the players for those scenarios and we do the best that we possibly can.”

Saka missed only three Premier League matches in three seasons between 2021 and 2024 and broke the Arsenal club record by playing in 83 consecutive top-flight games. He is already approaching 300 appearances for the club he joined as a seven-year-old and was rewarded with a lucrative new contract in February that made him one of the highest-paid players in the club’s history.

Asked whether he feared Saka could suffer from burnout having made his Arsenal debut three months after his 17th birthday, Arteta said: “I don’t have that feeling at all but something we have to be very mindful of is to create the right ecosystem around the player to fulfil his qualities. We really need to understand, whenever he comes back, how we are going to manage his load, what he is capable of to sustain having an impact in the team.”

Saka’s absence could hand an opportunity to Max Dowman on Saturday. The 16-year-old has played only nine minutes in the league this season and Arteta feels sure he is ready to make an impact after he became the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history, against David Moyes’s side in March.

“There is something inevitable to go back to that memory and the feeling of the moment. That’s with us, that’s going to stay in that stadium for a long, long time,” said Arteta. “He’s training and every time he’s got a moment to play, he’s showing that he’s a player that is going to impact the game. For sure he’s going to have minutes.”