Arsenal handed triple injury boost for Bayer Leverkusen clash after new update

In partnership with

Evening Standard

·10 marzo 2026

Arsenal handed triple injury boost for Bayer Leverkusen clash after new update

Gunners in good shape ahead of Champions League last-16 first-leg clash in Germany

Arsenal have been handed a triple injury boost after William Saliba, Leandro Trossard and Riccardo Calafiori were spotted in training on the eve of their Champions League last-16 trip to Bayer Leverkusen.

OneFootball Video

All three players were seen taking part in Tuesday’s slightly delayed session at the Sobha Realty Training Centre at London Colney which was open to the media, with the Gunners due to fly to Germany later in the afternoon ahead of manager Mikel Arteta’s pre-match press conference at 6pm GMT.

Saliba’s return in particular is great news for Arsenal, with the French defender having played no part in successive matches against Brighton and Mansfield after turning his ankle in the recent win over Chelsea.

Trossard and Calafiori, meanwhile, both started Saturday’s hard-fought FA Cup fifth-round win at third-tier Mansfield, though each were substituted with what Arteta described after the game as “little niggles” - Trossard late in the first half, Calafiori with just under quarter of an hour to go.

Arsenal are set to remain without Martin Odegaard for the first-leg tie against Leverkusen, with their influential captain still nursing a lingering knee issue and not training on Tuesday.

Odegaard returned from his latest setback in an injury-hit season with an assist off the bench in last month’s north London derby rout of Tottenham, but has been absent since after Arteta revealed that he is still not feeling “fully comfortable”.

Odegaard’s national team coach, Stale Solbakken, recently suggested that the Norwegian midfielder may not return for Arsenal until late March at the earliest.

Recovery: William Saliba and Riccardo Calafiori seen alongside Kai Havertz and Christian Norgaard in Arsenal training

Action Images via Reuters

Ben White is poised to miss out again in Leverkusen having also not trained once more due to an unspecified knock that has seen him unavailable since the FA Cup fourth-round win over Wigan.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen if Mikel Merino will play again this season after undergoing surgery last month on a rare foot injury.

Arteta completely rested David Raya, Declan Rice, Gabriel and Martin Zubimendi at Mansfield, while Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber, Piero Hincapie and match-winner Eberechi Eze came off the bench and Viktor Gyokeres was an unused substitute, but all trained on Tuesday and will be expected to return to Arsenal’s starting lineup at BayArena.

“Well, they had issues and they've been carrying issues,” Arteta said of Raya, Rice, Gabriel and Zubimendi at the weekend. “And the amount of games that we are playing, it's obviously super demanding.

“And it was the only time to try to make sure that we can clean those issues that they're having to start the next sequence of two weeks before the [international] break in the best possible way. We had to make those decisions.”

Leverkusen loanee Hincapie is eligible to play against his parent club, while Myles Lewis-Skelly is back after serving a one-game FA Cup suspension.

Max Dowman impressed against Mansfield after starting alongside fellow 16-year-old Marli Salmon, with both teenagers involved in first-team training again on Tuesday.