Arsenal were beaten to a 2-2 draw by Crystal Palace on Wednesday evening, with Jakub Kiwior’s early header canceled out by Eberechi Eze’s fantastic volley from a corner. Leandro Trossard put the home side ahead at the break, but a mistake by William Saliba in the second half allowed Jean-Philippe Mateta to equalise.
With PSG coming to town next Tuesday, all eyes will be on the Champions League semi-final first leg. When asked if the game against the French champs was on his players’ thoughts, Arteta replied: “Hopefully not, but we addressed it before each week, and it wasn’t there.
“Today, we still had six days to prepare for the match, which I do not want to use. Obviously, we’ve missed a number of guys, including some who haven’t trained at all and were unable to participate today, so we’ve been quite short. But, credit to Palace, they are very well structured, they are a really good team, and they made it difficult for us, as did the fact that we weren’t at our best today.”
One of Arteta’s concerns was that Ben White and Mikel Merino did not make the matchday squad to face Palace owing to fitness issues. Both players sustained injuries following the 4-0 victory over Ipswich Town and are now racing against the clock to recover in time to face PSG.
“They couldn’t be involved; otherwise, they would have been involved,” Arteta told Sky Sports. “Unfortunately, after the game [vs Ipswich] we had some issues and they are not fit.”
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