{"id":741,"date":"2026-03-11T16:39:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=741"},"modified":"2026-03-11T16:39:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:39:55","slug":"team-news-saliba-returns-as-one-of-10-changes-team-news-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Team news: Saliba returns as one of 10 changes | Team news | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Mikel Arteta has made 10 changes for tonight\u2019s Champions League round of 16 game against Bayer Leverkusen, including William Saliba returning to the heart of our defence.<\/p>\n<p>The Frenchman has missed the past couple of matches with an ankle injury but is back as part of a familiar-looking side after the boss rotated heavily for our FA Cup win at Mansfield Town on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Having been rested for that game, Gabriel, Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice all return as expected, with only Gabriel Martinelli named in both starting line-ups. The Brazilian needs one more goal to equal the seven that Thierry Henry netted in 2002\/03 to become our joint-highest scorer in a Champions League campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Ben White is back on the bench after struggling of late with a muscle injury, where Kai Havertz is also waiting in reserve as he hopes to appear against the club where it all started for him.<\/p>\n<p>Piero Hincapie will play against the side he is currently on loan from, while Riccardo Calafiori is fit enough for a spot on the bench after coming off against Mansfield, but Leandro Trossard misses out.<\/p>\n<h2>LINE-UP<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Arsenal: <\/strong>Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie, Zubimendi, Rice, Eze, Saka, Martinelli, Gyokeres.<br \/><strong>Subs: <\/strong>Arrizabalaga, Ranson, White, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Mosquera, Salmon, Norgaard, Madueke, Dowman, Havertz, Jesus.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ahead of kick-off, get prepared for the game with the key stats, TV coverage, Leverkusen&#8217;s tactics and players to watch and much more in <\/em><em>our in-depth match preview<\/em><\/p>\n<article data-entity-type=\"node\" data-entity-uuid=\"0c2adf51-a122-4ef4-b652-f622a6e77157\" data-embed-button=\"article_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:node.tiny\" data-langcode=\"en\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<article data-article-id=\"125144\" about=\"\/news\/preview-bayer-leverkusen-v-arsenal\">\n<div class=\"article-card article-card--tiny card\" data-eq-pts=\"xsmall: 200, small: 550, medium: 640, large: 768\">\n<div class=\"card__content\">\n<p>\n         <span class=\"h6 article-card__subhead\">Read more<\/span>                             <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"article-card__title\" title=\"Preview: Bayer Leverkusen v Arsenal\"><span class=\"article-card__title-words\">  Preview: Bayer Leverkusen v Arsenal <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Arteta has made 10 changes for tonight\u2019s Champions League round of 16 game against Bayer Leverkusen, including William Saliba returning to the heart of our defence. The Frenchman has &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}