Alexandre Lacazette's whereabouts was a major talking point prior to Arsenal's game against Southampton on Saturday afternoon having not been spotted in any of the training sessions in the build-up to the 1-0 defeat at St Mary's.
With Thomas Partey, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney already ruled out of the trip to the South Coast, Gunners manager Mikel Arteta was quizzed in his pre-match press conference as to if the Frenchman would be available for selection, and his response was rather positive.
"We will see if he’s available," the Spaniard said. "It's a good possibility that that’s the case." However, as it turned out, Lacazette missed the game after testing positive for Covid and his absence handed Eddie Nketiah a first Premier League start of the season.
READ MORE: Arsenal Women vs Chelsea Women LIVE: Stream details, kick-off time, team news, and score updates
As Arsenal are back in action against London rivals Chelsea at Stamford Bridge next week, it remains to be seen if Lacazette will be able to make his return on Wednesday night or has to wait three more days when Manchester United visit the Emirates Stadium in a huge clash that has top-four implications.
In England, as per a statement via the NHS website: "While you're no longer legally required to self-isolate if you have COVID-19, you should try to stay at home and away from others to avoid passing on the virus'.
But as Lacazette has tested positive for COVID-19, the guidelines are as follows: ' If you have COVID-19, you can pass on the virus to other people for up to 10 days from when your infection starts. Many people will no longer be infectious to others after 5 days.
'You should:
- try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days
- avoiding meeting people at higher risk from COVID-19 for 10 days, especially if their immune system means they’re at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, even if they’ve had a COVID-19 vaccine
'This starts from the day after you did the test.'
Previous self-isolation guidance in the UK that came into effect on December 22, 2021, stated that those who test positive for Covid-19 were able to quarantine for seven days instead of 10 - but only if two rapid lateral flow tests came back negative, were at least 24 hours apart and there was no sign of a high temperature.
Therefore, taking the current guidelines into consideration, if Lacazette stays home and avoids contact with his Arsenal teammates for five days, it's likely that he can return to training on Thursday - assuming he did the test on Saturday - which would rule him out of the Chelsea game, but place him in contention to face the Red Devils next weekend.
With that said, Arteta did issue an update on his captain and revealed what must happen for the striker to be in contention for the London derby : "It will depend whether he’s negative and whether he is feeling better and if his symptoms have gone and if he’s available to play (against Chelsea)."
