Mikel Arteta offers huge injury update ahead of Real Madrid showdown | OneFootball

Arsenal’s 2024/25 season will be decided by their UEFA Champions League showdowns with Real Madrid next month.

The Gunners secured their spot in the last eight of the competition after a dominant 9-3 last 16 aggregate win over PSV Eindhoven.

Los Blancos were forced to battle a little harder as they edged out a controversial penalty shootout win over Atletico Madrid.

The prize for Carlo Ancelotti and Mikel Arteta is a battle to reach the semi finals which Arsenal have not achieved since 2009.

Arsenal’s only previous Champions League meeting with Los Blancos came in the 2005/06 last 15 stage as Thierry Henry silenced the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in a 1-0 win.

Arsene Wenger’s underdogs gritted out a 0-0 draw in the second leg and went all the way to a first ever final only to lose out to Barcelona.

The picture has some similarities ahead of the incoming games, with Arsenal rank outsiders to knock out Ancelotti’s defending champions, with their Premier League title hopes already over.

Photo by Reuters

Arteta and former Real Madrid midfielder Martin Odegaard have looked to rally the troops ahead of facing Ancelotti and talisman Bukayo Saka is winning his fitness race to return for the first leg.

“He’s getting closer and making very good progress. Let’s see how he reacts when we throw him in with team training next week and how fit he can get,” as per quotes from BBC Sport.

“Hopefully we will see him more with ball at his feet than he has been able to so far. He’s already done quite a lot of work out on the pitch working on his own.”

Saka has missed three months of action following surgery on a thigh injury and Arteta will want to give him game time before their Champions League return.

Arsenal host Real Madrid in the first leg on April 8 before travelling to the Spanish capital eight days later.

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