Mikel Arteta will make a late call on the availability of Bukayo Saka, Riccardo Calafiori and Jurrien Timber for Sunday’s match against Liverpool.

All three could be available, but on Friday it was too early to confirm one way or the other, Mikel Arteta said in his pre-match press conference.

Speaking at Sobha Realty Training Centre, he explained: “We will do our best to make them available one way or another, but it is very uncertain.

“(Saka) trained a little on grass. How far we can take it until Sunday is another question. We have another day, which is a good thing, but we’ll see.

“(Calafiori) needs some more testing. Yesterday he had some, today he’s going to have some more and then we’ll know. Last time we thought it was really bad and he ended up playing two or three days later, so let’s see how it goes.

“Timber, again, this is the first session he can participate. He’s been out for a while, we expected him to be further back than where he is currently but, again, we’ll have to wait and see.

No updates were provided on Martin Odegaard (ankle), Takehiro Tomiyasu (knee) or Kieran Tierney (hamstring).

One thing we do know is that William Saliba will not be involved this weekend as he is serving a one-match suspension following last weekend’s red card against Bournemouth.

It is important that we are able to find a solution and adapt well to it, Mikel said.

“Well, we have different options, players who have played there before,” he added. “It’s true that this partnership was very stable as you said, it played at every moment. He’s not available, we have to find a different solution and that’s something that as a team we have to be good at as well.