Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, says Thomas Partey will be out for some weeks due to injury.
Mikel Arteta has told his players to embrace the challenge, after a damaging week in their pursuit of a top four finish.
Arsenal lost some of the initiative in the race for the Champions League when they were emphatically beaten 3-0 at Crystal Palace on Monday.
And that blow was compounded by the loss of two crucial players, with Kieran Tierney suffering a season-ending knee injury and Thomas Partey, a thigh problem that will keep him out for “some weeks.”
Arsenal – fifth in the table, level on 54 points with Tottenham but with a game in hand – return to action against Brighton today, the first of nine games they have remaining this season.
Asked about the potential impact of a costly period, Arteta said: “Embrace the challenge. You lost and now you want to win. It’s hurting and it’s still hurting.
“We’ve lost two big players, really important players for us in the team for sure, but we are not going to have them so we cannot be crying for that because they are not going to be available for us, so we have to find other solutions and we have to still be as good and as competitive as we have been.
“Monday is gone. We have to react now, and show tomorrow the energy and commitment that we want to play this game tomorrow with our fans. We have to play better and we have to compete much better than we did in the first half.”
The Spaniard admitted he was unsure how long he would be without Partey, after he picked up a “significant” thigh injury.
“It is a little bit ambiguous but, he has a significant injury,” he added. “He will be out for some weeks.
He could be [back before the season ends] but it could not be the case as it’s an area where he had an injury previously and he felt it straightaway.”