Arsenal guaranteed to be without four players vs Fulham as Bukayo Saka decision confirmed

Arsenal have nine games of the Premier League season remaining, as well as at least two Champions League matches against Real Madrid, and Mikel Arteta is keen to build some momentum ahead of the run-in.

"It's possible to win tomorrow. And the preparation is to be better than Fulham and beat them tomorrow," the Arsenal boss said on Monday. "And if we do that, we're going to start to generate a good momentum and it's going to help for both competitions."

Fulham will provide a tough test, though, on Tuesday night at Emirates Stadium with Marco Silva's men challenging for a European place in the league this season. In fact, the Cottagers are just four points off Chelsea in fourth.

"It's always a really tough opposition. A team that is very well coached," Arteta told reporters ahead of the clash. "They've been together for many years. They have great organisation, a lot of individual quality and a very clear identity of how they play, how they want to approach the games, especially against us. So we're going to have to be really good tomorrow to beat them."

Arsenal will be boosted by the return of Bukayo Saka, who has been out with a serious hamstring injury since December. Arteta confirmed the Hale Ender is "ready to go" and could even be in line to start the match.

"Well, the careful thing is already done. So now it's about putting him in the grass in the right moments," Arteta said. "But he's pushing because he really wants it. We have respected the time frame, we have done everything and we have to hold him back even. So he's ready to go."

Arteta will be without Riccardo Calafiori, however, after the defender picked up a knee injury during Italy's Nations League clash with Germany. Jurrien Timber, who had been ill over the international break, looks to be fine.

"Ricardo unfortunately picked up an injury again with the national team. Really unfortunate the way it happened," the Gunners boss said.

"It could have been much worse. So hopefully it's going to be a matter of weeks. But we'll have to see how that injury evolves. And Jurrien, yeah, he was ill for a long period, quite badly. He's felt much better in the last few days."

Gabriel Saka, Kai Havertz and Takehiro Tomiyasu are the club's long-term absentees and are not expected to return until next season. That means, when looking at the official Arsenal website, the Gunners have 18 senior players available for selection for the game vs Fulham. As per Premier League rules, a club is allowed to name a squad of 20 players for a Premier League match.

Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly, who are classed as Arsenal Academy players on the Gunners official website, will be included in the squad as normal.

Possible Arsenal squad for Fulham: Raya, Neto; Timber, White, Gabriel, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Saliba, Lewis-Skelly, Tierney; Rice, Jorginho, Partey, Merino, Odegaard, Nwaneri; Trossard, Martinelli, Saka, Sterling

Senior players unavailable for Fulham: Tomiyasu (knee injury), Jesus (knee injury), Havertz (hamstring injury), Calafiori (knee injury)

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