Mikel Arteta has no fears over the long-term fitness of Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu, revealing the duo’s injury issues last season were down to Arsenal having to rush them back.
The pair missed large chunks of the 2021/22 campaign and are also both facing a battle to be fit for the opening game of this Premier League season, which comes against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Friday night.
Arteta, however, is confident that Tierney and Tomiyasu will not be dogged by further injuries going forward.
“Hopefully not,” he said. “The reason they got those persistent injuries are for different reasons, probably because the squad didn’t enable them to recover, and [we] don’t play them when it was necessary and it was too tired when they weren’t fully recovered, so sometimes we had to rush them.
“It was a combination of things with those two players, they’re so pushy and willing to contribute with the team. We know that with those two fit and performing at their best, we are much stronger as a team.”
