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Arsenal have been handed a major Bukayo Saka injury blow moments before kick-off against Leeds United. The 24-year-old was set to start in the front three but has now been replaced by Noni Madueke.

The Gunners winger, who was set to captain his boyhood club at Elland Road with Martin Odegaard on the bench, had been warming up as normal before he was spotted heading down the tunnel with a physio.

Gabriel Magalhaes has since taken the armband with Christian Norgaard promoted to the bench. The former is in defence alongside the returning William Saliba and Jurrien Timber, who both missed Wednesday's Champions League win over Kairat through knocks. Arsenal confirmed those changes in a social media post just before kick-off.

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It read: "Noni Madueke replaces Bukayo Saka following an injury in the warm-up. Gabriel takes the captain's armband, with Christian Norgaard now amongst the substitutes."

Just as injury blows for Mikel Arteta looked to be lessening, two fitness concerns have emerged. Alongside Saka, Mikel Merino has suffered a foot injury with Arteta issuing an update on Saturday.

He said: "He’s got an issue in his foot. It’s a bone that’s giving him some pain, and we have some exams, we need some more specialists to look at it and to see how long he will be out.”

Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera, Piero Hincapie have all returned recently with the latter in the starting XI at left-back and Timber on the opposite flank.

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The big change has come in midfield with captain Odegaard making way for the returning Kai Havertz. The Germany international scored and grabbed an assist in his 45-minute cameo earlier this week.

Arsenal have been managing his load since he returned to the squad back in late December but he looks to have overcome any potential setbacks. Arteta hinted at that during his press conference on Friday.

He said: "Yeah, he's ready, obviously he started the day, obviously it's been a long period and now we need to manage that load and the games that we're going to select for him to start, but there was no reaction to that.

"I think it was super positive, you could see straight away the impact that he can have in the team, so yeah, he's ready."

Viktor Gyokeres was left out of the starting XI to face Manchester United with Gabriel Jesus given the nod up top in his place.

Despite the Swede starting in Europe earlier this week, he is set to be part of the front three alongside Leandro Trossard and now Madueke.

Despite the blows to Saka and Merino, there is not enough space in the squad for Myles Lewis-Skelly with the academy graduate playing just 33 minutes of Premier League football this month.