Declan Rice and Gabriel Magalhaes have each dropped an early team news hint ahead of Arsenal's match against Fulham. The Gunners will host the Cottagers at Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night as they both look to climb the Premier League.
Before March's international break, Arsenal cruised to victory against London rivals Chelsea with Mikel Merino snatching three crucial points in the title race. While Liverpool have a comfortable lead at the top of the table, they've shown signs of weakness in recent weeks.
The Reds have lost each of their last two matches - crashing out of the Champions League to Paris Saint-Germain over two legs and losing to Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup final. Arsenal are 12 points behind Liverpool with nine games to go, but Arteta won't go down without a fight.
Nevertheless, Rice and Gabriel have previewed the Gunners' clash against Fulham on Instagram. Historically, this suggests the duo will be involved in some capacity. Meanwhile, Jorginho has posted pre-match graphic - hinting that he too will start against Marco Silva's side.
"Back at it tomorrow [red heart emoji] @arsenalfc," wrote Rice, beside a picture from training at the Sobha Realty Centre. Meanwhile, Gabriel said: "Back to action!! See you tomorrow Gunners!! [red heart emoji]."
Speaking to reporters ahead of the cross-London derby, Arteta confirmed that Bukayo Saka will be available for selection. The 23-year-old forward suffered a hamstring injury during the Gunners' win over Crystal Palace back in December.
"Bukayo is ready to go," said the Arsenal manager. "Well, all the careful things he's already done. So now it's about putting him in the grass in the right moments. But he's pushing because he really wants it. We have respected the timeframe, we have done everything and we have had to hold him back even. So he's ready to go."
When asked if Saka could start, Arteta responded: "Yes. It's another massive weapon that we have with him. We know the impact that he's had on the team and how important his role and his contribution are to our success. So it's great to have him back."
On Fulham, the Spaniard went on: "It's possible to win tomorrow, and the preparation is to be better than Fulham and beat them tomorrow [tonight]. If we do that, we're going to start to generate a good momentum that's going to help for both competitions."
Arteta added: "It's always a really tough opposition, and a team that is very well coached. They've been together for many years, they have great organisation, a lot of individual quality and a very clear identity of how they play, how they want to approach the games, especially against us. So we're going to have to be really good tomorrow to beat them."
Arteta will be relying on the likes of Rice and Gabriel to step up and lead Arsenal to victory. While a few players have posted pre-match previews of the Fulham game across their social media channels, it does not necessarily mean that they will definitely start or, at the very least, play.
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