Arsenal welcomed Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Emirates Stadium earlier tonight as they hoped to secure a good result at home in the Premier League. The Gunners made a decent start to the game but

The focus Wolves have had this season is the only thing wandering in Wolverhampton this season. Through 14 matches, the club has failed to score a win. Including a loss to Manchester United this past Monday, it has lost eight straight league matches and nine consecutive defeats in a row across all competitions. Time: 3 p.m. ET

After 15 league games this season, Arsenal have suffered 15 injuries but the number of absentees have largely been a subplot

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta opted to drop influential trio Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Jurriën Timber to the bench for Wednesday night’s Premier League clash

Premier League leaders Arsenal needed two own goals, the second deep in stoppage time, to scrape a 2-1 home win over bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers and open a five-point gap while earlier on Saturday Mohamed Salah put aside a tumultuous week to help Liverpool beat Brighton and Hove Albion 2-0.

Arsenal are currently without Gabriel Magalhães and Cristhian Mosquera, and only just welcomed back William Saliba into the fold after the Frenchman recovered from his own injury layoff, which has seen Arteta recently deploy Christian Nørgaard at centre-back during their Champions League win over Club Brugge in midweek.

Rice is more of a suckerpunch. The reliably durable midfielder had shaken off an injury doubt from midweek to play the full 90 minutes against Villa only to then be absent from training ahead of the trip to Belgium. Arteta confirmed that all three would miss out of the league phase match, although downplayed the severity of Rice’s ailment.

Arsenal’s season has reached the stage where depth, resilience and timing begin to matter as much as form. The coming weeks were always likely to test Mikel Arteta’s squad, but the scale of the injury list now casts a long shadow over a period that could define the title race.