Just when Arsenal had a near-clean bill of health, Takehiro Tomiyasu suffered an injury scare which makes him a doubt to face Chelsea.
The Japan international, whose calendar year has pretty much been disrupted by injury and fitness issues, limped off with two minutes remaining on the clock during the 1-0 Europa League win over FC Zurich on Thursday night having only replaced Ben White in the 73rd minute.
Given Tomiyasu's recent history with muscle injuries, it was no surprise that Mikel Arteta swiftly decided to withdraw the Arsenal defender from proceedings in the hope of avoiding any further damage with games against Chelsea, Brighton and Wolves on the horizon before the World Cup break.
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"We don't know [what the issue is]. He felt something and we didn’t want to take any risks," the Spaniard told reporters after the Zurich game when asked for an update on the 24-year-old. "With the amount of games that we're playing, it's part of it.
"It can happen in training, it can happen in games and unfortunately, it happened to Tomi today. The rest of the players have to be ready because we’re going to need everybody now. We have managed the load of the players in the last four weeks because of the amount of games that we have played.
"It is very difficult to get the balance and to get the right performances and win matches, and resting some players and keeping them fresh is always challenging, we have tried to do our best. Today we had bad news with Tomiyasu, but I think for the rest it has worked pretty well."
To Arteta's point, in general, his squad are in good shape heading into the Chelsea fixture. Of the 24 senior players at his disposal, only Emile Smith Rowe - who has scored on his last two appearances at Stamford Bridge - is definitely ruled out as he's not due back in training until next month.
Of course, as Arsenal are back in Premier League action, the Spanish tactician is once again permitted to name a 20-man matchday squad for the trip to West London which means he will have to make a difficult decision on which other three first-team stars he must leave at home.
For last week's 5-0 thrashing of Nottingham Forest, it was Oleksandr Zinchenko, Mohamed Elneny and Matt Turner who missed out alongside Smith Rowe. But the situation has changed with the former pair being named in the matchday squad against Zurich and it's safe to assume they'll retain their places against Chelsea.
Furthermore, with Turner - the £5million summer signing - back in training after missing the last two games through injury, he could be recalled to the squad in place of Karl Hein who drops out alongside Tomiyasu who wasn't spotted in Saturday's session at London Colney.
Should this scenario play out, there's still one more senior player that won't make the short trip to west London and it could come down to a decision between Cedric Soares and Marquinhos. The latter could be the odd one out as the former might be needed as extra defensive cover.
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