Mikel Arteta provides William Saliba, Martin Odegaard and Ben White injury updates

William Saliba missed the win over Nottingham Forest on Saturday (Picture: Getty Images)

Arsenal will be without Martin Odegaard and Ben White for their Champions League trip to Bilbao on Tuesday night.

The Gunners are dealing with a string of injuries early in the season and few have cleared up for their first Champions League outing of the season.

Mikel Arteta takes his team to Spain to face Athletic Club on Tuesday, but captain Odegaard and defender White will not be with them.

Also missing from the squad for the trip to the Basque country are Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka, who all remain sidelined.

Speaking at a pre-match press conference on Monday, Arteta said: ‘Gabby, Kai, Ben and Martin are still out unfortunately.’

Saka is dealing with a hamstring problem and is not close enough to a return for his manager to accurately predict when he will be available again.

‘No, I think he’s still quite a lot of things to go through,’ said the Spaniard. ‘Very difficult to understand what week he is going to be available.’

Martin Odegaard is dealing with a shoulder injury (Picture: Getty Images)

William Saliba missed Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Saturday after limping out of the defeat to Liverpool in their previous outing.

However, the Frenchman appears to have recovered from that ankle issue, having been in training before the trip to Spain.

The centre-back is now available to return, although whether he will or not on Tuesday is yet to be seen after an impressive start to life with Arsenal for summer signing Cristhian Mosquera.

The 21-year-old replaced Saliba against Liverpool and deputised against Forest, looking good in doing so.

Ben White will not be involved in Spain this week (Picture: Getty Images)

How serious Odegaard’s shoulder injury is remains unclear, although he has not flown out with the rest of the squad to Spain.

Arteta said after the Norwegian suffered the problem against Forest that he does not expect his captain to need surgery and he was unlikely to be out for long.

White was on the bench on Saturday but did not come on and still hasn’t featured since the opening day of the season.

It is a tricky start to the Champions League group stage for Arsenal, which also sees them face the likes of Bayern Munich and Inter Milan, but also the relatively straight forward challenges of Kairat Almaty and Slavia Prague.

Arteta’s team is considered a contender to win the Champions League this season after they beat Real Madrid on their way to the semi-finals last season.

But as he already deals with a number of fitness issues, the Gunners boss points out that those injury headaches will have to ease if they are to be successful.

Mikel Arteta is again having a frustrating time with injuries (Picture: Getty Images)

‘Like the rest of the teams they have done the same and they have won it in many occasions. We know its going to be a really long journey. You have to give yourself the best chance to win the game,’ he said.

‘That we are good enough that we can compete with any opposition on the day. You have to have two things go your way. You have to have a full squad available and have to put the ball in the net when the chances come your way.’

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