Martinelli Arsenal theory emerges after surprise Arteta pre-season snub| SolSportHQ

Arsenal news: Gabriel Martinelli did not feature for the Gunners against Nurnberg and the reason why may have just been revealed

Gabriel Martinelli was a surprising omission from Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal squad to face Nurnberg in a pre-season friendly last Thursday. The Gunners took the lead through Bukayo Saka but saw a bizarre own goal level the contest which resulted in Arsenal’s first official pre-season game ending in a draw.

There were some injury concerns heading into the fixture with supporters eager to see William Saliba in action and they certainly got their wish, however there were some injury problems coming out of the game involving Martin Odegaard and Martinelli.

Elsewhere, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu were not risked as they continue the recovery process from their respective injuries, while the same can also be said for Mohamed Elneny who remained at London Colney.

Martinelli suffered an injury towards the end of last season but looked set to be fit for Arsenal’s pre-season campaign, but that was not the case. Any major injury doubts have since been removed with the duo named in Arsenal’s squad that travelled to the USA on Monday.

However, the reason for Martinelli’s absence in Germany is still intriguing to many and one eagle-eyed fan could have potentially spotted why the Brazilian missed the clash.

From a brief camera shot shown off the Arsenal bench where Martinelli was seated, a nasty gash appears to be present on his leg with a Reddit user suggesting it could have occurred from the Gunners’ bike trip through the streets of Germany as the video was captioned, “I bet he fell off his bike in Germany.”