Star pair ruled out of massive clash involving Leeds United's relegation rivals but boss vow

Fifth-bottom Nottingham Forest are three points ahead of third-bottom Leeds with just two games left, starting with Saturday evening’s hosting of second-placed Arsenal at the City Ground. Arsenal, though, will definitely be without both star forward Gabriel Martinelli and also left back ace Oleksandr Zinchenko, both of whom have been ruled out for the rest of the season after recent injuries.

"They are both out for the rest of the season," said Gunners boss Mikel Arteta at Friday's pre-match press conference, as quoted by arsenal.com. "Gabi’s is a pretty nasty injury. We need to assess next week how long he will be out for, but it will be weeks at least. With Alex, it’s a calf issue. He won’t be available to play in the next few games.”

Arsenal could have leapfrogged leaders Manchester City with a victory at the City Ground had they beaten last weekend’s visitors Brighton but the Gunners instead fell to a 3-0 home defeat. Arteta, though, has declared a strong message of intent and vow ahead of Saturday’s clash in Nottingham.

"Obviously it was a very difficult one to swallow, especially the way it happened in the last 25 minutes of the game,” said Areta about the Brighton defeat. "At first, when it was much more competitive, we should have taken advantage of many more situations that we had in the game. It was tough, but at the end, in the following days we discussed where we are, what we’ve done, the remaining two games, what the possibilities are there, what’s in our hands and what we can deliver. We want to continue to be at the level we’ve been at for 10 months.”