Arsenal cancel Christmas! Mikel Arteta orders Gunners stars in for training on December 25th despite not playing on Boxing Day

According to The Sun, Arteta will hold a training session at their London Colney base on Christmas morning. Players will be permitted to return home after training, as Arteta remains determined to keep standards high during a crucial stage of the season. Arsenal’s previous game comes just two days earlier, a Carabao Cup quarter-final against Crystal Palace on December 23, and the expectation is that the squad will be granted Christmas Eve off, a date culturally significant for many of the club’s European contingent. Even so, the festive meal will be delayed for several members of the squad, like Ben White, Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze, who must alter family plans.

Arteta’s demand for a Christmas Day session comes at a time when the club’s injury list has drawn criticism, despite the manager repeatedly denying that his methods are too taxing. The Spaniard has dismissed the idea that training intensity is to blame for the spate of issues, but a growing number of observers believe fatigue is beginning to take its toll. The Gunners are currently without several key defenders, including William Saliba, who has missed four matches after suffering a recurrence of complications from an ankle injury sustained earlier this season. Arteta provided fresh insight into Saliba’s condition ahead of Arsenal’s meeting with Wolves, revealing that the defender’s absence stems from compensations he made while recovering from an ankle twist suffered at Anfield in August.

"It was something quite small," he said. "It came from an ankle injury that he had and then he started to modify the way he was running and he started to overload an area, which is something common. But at some point he was uncomfortable continuing to be able to train and play and we had to stop it. He looks better but we'll have to wait and see if it's enough for him to be able to train with the team."

On being pressed whether the defender will be available this weekend, Arteta said: "We have to wait and see. Yesterday we didn’t train, so we have an extra day between this afternoon, let’s see if he can be available or not. It remains the same. If you asked me for the Everton game, I think he will be fit; for tomorrow, I don’t know."

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Despite the defensive turbulence, Arsenal responded superbly in midweek, dismantling Club Brugge 3-0 to maintain a perfect Champions League record of six wins from six. Asked whether his side are receiving enough credit for their strong standing across the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup, Arteta brushed off the question. 

"I don’t know, that’s not for me to judge," he said. "We’re in a very strong position in the three competitions that we’ve been involved in so far, and that’s what we have to continue to do at the end. The credit has to come at the end of the season, that’s when we’re going to measure what we’ve done, but in order to achieve that, you have to be achieving, every single day, the objectives that you want. So far, I think we are in a very strong position."

The Gunners made headlines again this week for their 33-minute flight from Luton to Ostend for their Champions League match in Belgium. The journey from Ostend Airport to Bruges by coach took even longer than the time spent airborne. Yet this is not the shortest flight Arsenal have taken, as a 2015 trip to Norwich lasted just 14 minutes and drew criticism at the time. There will be no controversy this weekend, however. Wolves travel to the Emirates for Saturday evening’s Premier League clash, a fixture Arsenal are expected to dominate against a side still searching for their first league win of the season.