Arsenal transfer news: Arteta's Bukayo Saka plan emerges as £100m move teased

Arsenal are in solid shape as far as the Premier League table is concerned, but an injury to Bukayo Saka has come at an inconvenient time.

Mikel Arteta's side are due to be without the England international for "many weeks" after he was forced off in the first half of Saturday's victory over Crystal Palace. With a busy January on the horizon, the Gunners will need to decide if they have enough cover in the squad and - if not - dip into the market.

After a busy summer, with the likes of Riccardo Calafiori and Mikel Merino arriving in North London, there could now be movement in the other direction. Aaron Ramsdale was among the summer departures, and there has been talk of Kieran Tierney becoming the next senior star to leave.

With Arsenal playing just one more match before the turn of the year, some are already looking ahead to the transfer window opening. Here are Mirror Football's latest lines from around the Emirates Stadium.

Mikel Arteta has been working on a contingency plan now he knows Bukayo Saka will be missing for the coming weeks. However, he stopped short of saying whether that plan might involve any new additions to the squad.

"I’m putting some ideas together," the Gunners boss said after confirming Saka faced weeks on the sidelines. "I haven’t got there yet but I have a few.

"I want to speak with them as well and take it in a positive way, It means we’re going to be different. We went through the period with Martin [Odegaard] and the period with five, six defenders missing. We’re looking at it with positive energy."

Former Premier League winner Dwight Yorke has called on Arsenal to break the bank to sign Alexander Isak. The Newcastle striker scored a hat-trick at Ipswich on Saturday, and Yorke thinks he could be a real difference-maker.

"I can’t understand why Arsenal hesitated when they had the opportunity to sign Alexander Isak from Real Sociedad," the former Manchester United star told sportslens.com. "They sat on their hands, and Newcastle swooped in and took him. That was ridiculous.

"If Arsenal want to win the Premier League title, they should go to Newcastle and bang £100million on the table for Isak as soon as the January transfer window opens. I think the kid looks really good whenever I see him play. He does all the right things properly. He's a threat. He would score so many goals playing for Arsenal."

Kieran Tierney might have spent last season out on loan, but the Scotland defender hasn't asked to leave Arsenal. That's according to Mikel Arteta, who gave the left-back his first Gunners minutes in over a year during the Carabao Cup quarter-final.

"He hasn't come to me and said, 'I want to move,'" Arteta said of the Celtic-linked star. "When in the past we had any doubts, he came to me and said, 'I think it's my time to move.' This hasn't been the case yet."

Tierney played more than an hour against Crystal Palace in the cup, but that remains his only appearance this term after he missed the start of the season through injury. There are a number of players ahead of him in the pecking order, though, including youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly.