Arsenal face major travel disruption ahead of Lens clash

Arsenal are back in Champions League action on Tuesday evening as they face off with French outfit Lens at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis.

The Gunners got their group stage campaign off to a superb start last month as they put four past PSV to cement their place atop of Group B. Mikel Arteta’s side are heavy favourites to pick up the win on Tuesday as well, and can be backed at 8/13 to do so with bet365.

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Lens vs Arsenal

October 03, 2023

8:00 pm GMT+1

Ahead of taking on Lens, the Gunners’ preparations for Tuesday’s Champions League fixture were thrown into chaos after the squad were stranded for hours at Luton Airport on the eve of the game.

It is reported that the Arsenal squad were due to depart for Lille, just north of Lens, at 4.15 pm UK time on Monday but three hours later they were still waiting to depart the private terminal at Luton. The club have confirmed bad weather was responsible for the delay.

The delay lasted a total of five hours before the team safely landed in France at 10:40 pm local time on Monday evening. This delay meant Mikel Arteta’s pre-match press conference was cancelled.

As a result, the Spaniard could not provide any injury updates on his squad ahead of the game. But in a boost to the north Londoners, Thomas Partey - who has missed the Gunners’ last four Premier League games with a groin injury - trained on Monday morning and travelled with the squad to France later in the day.

Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus also travelled despite picking up knocks at the weekend vs Bournemouth.