Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Bukayo Saka will miss Arsenal‘s trip to Liverpool, also providing an update on Martin Odegaard’s hopes of playing.The Reds host the north Londoners on Sunday afternoon, in the biggest Premier League game of the season so far.Arsenal arguably pose the biggest threat to Liverpool’s title hopes in 2025/26, going into the weekend action unbeaten against them in six league meetings.Speaking to the media ahead of the game, Arteta confirmed that Saka will play no part on Sunday, having failed to recover from a hamstring injury.“Bukayo is doing better, but he will be out for a few weeks, unfortunately,” Arteta said.“No surgery, it’s not as bad as the previous one. Very unfortunate to pick it up because it’s on the other side.“It’s an action that requires full power from him. Then, he clashed with the opponent; he needed to change pace again, and he felt something.“So he will be out for a couple of weeks.”Meanwhile, Odegaard has been a doubt all week after suffering a shoulder injury in Arsenal‘s 5-0 win at home to Leeds last weekend.Arteta has admitted that his captain is struggling to make Sunday’s match, having not trained with his teammates.“We don’t know yet,” he added.“He hasn’t trained yet, and if he does, it will be tomorrow.“He’s doing everything he can, we’re doing everything that we can to make him available, but we’ll have to wait and see tomorrow.”Arteta certainly has previous when it comes to over-egging injuries – at this point, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Saka start!But assuming Saka is out, it acts as a big setback for Arsenal, with the Englishman scoring four times in nine Premier League games against Liverpool.Odegaard would also be a loss, but new big-money signing Eberechi Eze is an option to come straight into the team in the No. 10 role, or on the left flank.The rest of Arsenal‘s team looks likely to pick itself, with David Raya marshalling the troops behind a back four of Jurrien Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori. In midfield, former Liverpool target Martin Zubimendi will be joined by Declan Rice, with either Odegaard or Eze in front of them.But if Arteta is feeling particularly defensive, Mikel Merino is also an option with Zubimendi and Rice.Saka’s absence will give a chance for new signing Noni Madueke to shine – highly-rated 15-year-old Max Dowman should be on the bench – with Gabriel Martinelli and Viktor Gyokeres completing the attack.Ben White, Leandro Trossard and Christian Norgaard are all injury doubts, while Gabriel Jesus is still months away from returning from an ACL injury.