Arsenal handed huge Mikel Arteta blow vs Man City

Arsenal are enjoying a welcome break from action as 2021 draws to a close with the news of their clash with Wolves being called off, and preparations are all on New Years’ Day.

With nearly a week after beating Norwich 5-0 to work on a gameplan for the visit of Manchester City, the club have only had to deal with a few Covid cases when compared to some other clubs.

However, all four of their cases affect right-backs, which makes it likely that Benjamin White will have to fill in for Takehiro Tomiyasu once more as he did at Carrow Road.

Testing will be carried out daily as the number of infections rises across the Premier League, and sadly Arsenal have bee rocked by the news of another positive case, this time for Mikel Arteta.

Arsenal handed huge Mikel Arteta blow vs Manchester City as the manager tests positive for Covid and will miss Premier League clash on New Years’ Day

This is the second time the manager has contracted the virus having been one of the first high profile names in football to have tested positive back in March 2020.

"A statement on the club’s official website confirmed the news: “Mikel Arteta will miss our match against Manchester City on New Year’s Day after testing positive for COVID-19.“Mikel is isolating in line with Government guidelines and we wish him well.”"

For some clubs, not having the manager on the touchline isn’t too detrimental. Different bosses have different styles of coaching. However, as quiet as Arsene Wenger was in the dugout, Arteta is as animated.

He is the manager and losing his presence, like all for all teams, will be a loss. But he’s also a coach. An active coach who is woven into every attacking move and invested in every defensive action. If he could he’d get on the pitch and physically move players.

Hosting the reigning Premier League champions and current leaders of the division is already an almighty task. Losing Arteta on the touchline undoubtedly makes that job significantly harder.

It’s likely that a combination of Albert Stuivenberg and Steve Round will direct the players on the pitch and communicate in the dressing room. All eyes will be on ‘Airpod Albert’.

There will be a communication strategy in place, just like Patrick Vieira has had in the past two matches as he too contracted the virus, and even without the manager being near the stadium he is sure to have plenty of involvement in the team.

We wish Mikel a speedy recovery. We wish Arsenal good luck.