David Moyes is hopeful both Mark Noble and Jack Wilshere will be fit and available for Saturday’s Premier League fixture at Arsenal.
Captain Noble missed Tuesday’s Carabao Cup second-round win over Charlton Athletic and sat out Friday’s training session with a toe injury but, following treatment, the manager believes he will be ready for this weekend’s London derby at Emirates Stadium.
Meanwhile, Wilshere has had an ankle problem assessed and returned to the training pitch himself on Friday, raising the prospect of him facing the club where he came through the ranks and played over 200 times.
“Mark Noble has got a bit of a toe injury and we just didn’t risk him today in training because we want to see how he is. He took an injection in it, so we’ll see how he is tomorrow and hopefully he’ll be OK,” Moyes said, speaking his virtual pre-match press conference at Rush Green.
“Jack had a scan on his ankle on Wednesday. He’s got a little bit of bone growth on his ankle which is causing him irritation. He rolled his ankle and felt it, so that’s why we got it checked, but he’s OK and he’s back out training.”
Moyes made ten changes from the opening-day Premier League defeat by Newcastle United for the midweek win over Charlton, giving starts to the likes of Andriy Yarmolenko, Manuel Lanzini, Sebastien Haller, Felipe Anderson, Fabian Balbuena, Darren Randolph, Arthur Masuaku and Robert Snodgrass, who made his first appearance since before the lockdown after recovering from injury.
When asked how many of the ten could feature from the kick-off at Emirates Stadium, the manager was keeping his cards close to his chest!
“Well, I’m not going to answer your question because that would obviously be giving Arsenal and Mikel [Arteta] too much information, so I wouldn’t do that!” he smiled.
“I was really pleased with the result against Charlton. I thought the players performed well and we went about it really well and for the majority of them getting the 90 minutes was important as well.
“Robert Snodgrass, for example, that was his first game since February, so he got the best part of 80 minutes and he’s an important member of the squad. Is he ready? Probably not because of the lack of match practice.
“For a lot of the other players who have been doing all the training and played some pre-season games, it wasn’t any more than I expected, but I was really pleased with how we played.”
