Mikel Arteta: January window an 'opportunity to strengthen'

The Gunners are facing a tough test ahead of their Champions League match against Monaco, with up to seven players potentially unavailable.

Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu are both sidelined with knee injuries, while key defenders Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori, Jurrien Timber, and Oleksandr Zinchenko are all absent from training.

Midfielder Thomas Partey is also struggling with fitness, leaving Arteta with a depleted squad.

With these ongoing injury concerns, Arsenal could field their tenth different defensive combination of the season in their match against Monaco. In the midst of this crisis, Kieran Tierney, who has not played for the club in 16 months, could make his long-awaited return to action.

Arteta admitted that strengthening the squad is becoming increasingly necessary.

"The window gives us an opportunity to strengthen the team if we feel that is needed and we feel that we have the capacity to do that as well," said Arteta.

"We are on it and just have to assess the situation because it is changing every week. At the moment not for the better, but I'm positive that in a few weeks we're going to be in a better place."

"At the end if we have to accept the challenge and its opportunities for other players to do that.

"In the ideal scenario, we have to be in charge to make those decisions because it's forcing us to make it for the wrong reasons, but as well, we need to accept the reality and move forward.

"I'm really happy with the way that we are playing, and the good thing is that it's not conditioning the team in such a way that we have to become a different team.

"So, I'm very pleased with that, the way the team is adapting, the way players are making the effort to play in different positions and hopefully the ideal situation will come up very soon and we can do what we want.

"We have a lot of joint injuries that are very difficult to predict. We have some through tackles for example that again are quite difficult to predict. The other one probably is overload - the amount of minutes to play.

"The knock-on effect of not having one or two players available means it puts more strain and minutes on somebody else. That's not a good change because the consequences and load of all the players starts to be too high, much higher than what you want to do, but it is where we are."