Arsenal are sweating what could prove a double injury blow after both Declan Rice and Cristhian Mosquera were forced off during their Premier League visit to Aston Villa.
Mosquera went down holding his thigh in the 78th minute, calling Ezri Konsa into a debut on his Villa return, where he spent seven years before joining Arsenal this summer for £51m.
This is cause for concern for the Gunners, having already experienced bad luck with injuries at centre-back this season.
William Saliba is expected to be out until at least October after sustaining a back injury in France’s World Cup semi-final defeat to Spain, a setback which prompted Arsenal to recruit a new defender in Konsa in the first place.
Mosquera was able to walk off without assistance but any muscular probably would still likely rule him out for a couple of weeks at least.
open image in galleryBut just six minutes after the Spaniard’s substitution, Arsenal experienced an even more worrying sight as Rice limped off the field, replaced by Martin Zubimendi.
It’s not clear what was troubling Rice or whether the injury was the reason for his substitution, but after a summer of fitness problems, there will naturally be fears over the England international.
Off the back of an intensely strenuous 2025/26 campaign, during which he played 55 games for Arsenal and started 49, Rice experienced neural pain in his lower back and hamstring at the World Cup, with the season evidently taking its toll.
Mikel Arteta will hope the pain he was experiencing against Villa was just the result of a knock rather than the recurrence of a previous issue.
The Arsenal boss will be expected to address the concerns after the match, which Arsenal ran out 1-0 victors in courtesy of Bukayo Saka’s 59th-minute winner.