Mikel Arteta has said he will assess Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Leandro Trossard’s fitness in today’s final training session [Friday, October 20] ahead of the London derby against Chelsea on Saturday.

The trio pulled out of their international squads a fortnight ago due to various issues, with Saka and Trossard struggling with hamstrings, while Saliba has a problem with his big toe.

Arsenal have had 14 players away with on internationmal duty over the last ten days and isn’t ruling anyone in or out at this stage.

Arteta said: “We obviously haven’t had a lot of players. It’s the first training session we’re going to do today and we will know more after the session.

“I do have an idea [of his starting XI] but I have to see them all together today and how everybody is because we have a lot of people travelling around the world and with a lot of minutes in the legs.

"I want to judge what is the best for tomorrow, not only in terms of what I want to do tactically but also how the energy is, how the mood is, how the spirit is. In order to that, I will have a better clue after the session today.”

The Arsenal boss said of Saka: “I’m sure he wants to play.

"I don’t see any player there that doesn’t want to be in the starting XI. He has been working so hard to be fit for this game and let's see where he is at today. He had a couple of days off that he needed, but the rest unfortunately has not been rest for him because he needed the treatment and training to get ready to be available against Chelsea.

“I think we have to play him when we see he is in the right condition to play - mentally, physically and that he’s performing. He needs to deserve to play, that’s another story, but so far when he’s played that amount of minutes, it’s because we believe he was ready to cope with that.”

While the Gunners boss shared his take on Saliba, saying: “Hopefully [the issue won't be a recurring problem] but he has been carrying that for weeks now and we have to use that time to settle.

"We believe that this was the best moment to do it.”