Arsenal defender Jurrien Timber has hinted that he did not sustain a serious injury in Saturday's opening 2-1 Premier League win over Nottingham Forest.
After starting on the left-hand side of the backline in the Community Shield win over Manchester City, Timber took up the same position for the visit of the Tricky Trees in the absence of Oleksandr Zinchenko.
However, the Dutchman's Premier League debut was a forgettable affair, as he picked up a yellow card before being taken off a few minutes after the restart, having gone down off the ball.
Timber had come off worse in a challenge with Forest forward Brennan Johnson just before half time, but he was assessed by the club's medical staff and was given the green light to continue.
Mikel Arteta's decision to keep Timber on the field backfired horribly, though, as the 22-year-old dropped to the turf with an apparent issue in the calf/knee area and gingerly hobbled off to be replaced by Takehiro Tomiyasu.
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Amid fears that Timber could be out for an extended spell, Arteta was none the wiser about the severity of his issue after the game, but the defender cut a rather unconcerned figure on social media.
Posting a selection of images from Saturday's game on Instagram, Timber accompanied the collage with the caption "A win to begin" alongside a pair of emojis reading "back soon".
Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether Timber will be fit to play a part in next Monday's trip to meet London rivals Crystal Palace, as Arteta works around a number of injury concerns in the early weeks of the season.
Despite turning out briefly in the recent Game4Ukraine, Zinchenko has still not been seen in an Arsenal shirt this season, having failed to fully recover from his latest calf injury.
The left-back is not expected to be out for much longer, though, but Tomiyasu may still be required to fill in as a makeshift left-back should neither he nor Timber be given the thumbs-up from the medical team ahead of the trip to Palace.
Striker Gabriel Jesus is also working his way back from knee surgery, which is set to keep him sidelined for another few weeks, while Mohamed Elneny is yet to recover from a similar procedure undertaken in January.
Folarin Balogun (ankle), Reiss Nelson (toe) and Albert Sambi Lokonga (muscle) are taking up beds in the treatment room too, but the former and latter could still leave the club before the end of the summer window.
A new-look Arsenal side stormed into a two-goal lead against Forest thanks to Eddie Nketiah and Bukayo Saka's first-half strikes, but they were nearly made to pay for failing to increase their tally in the second period.
Taiwo Awoniyi finished off a scintillating Forest counter-attack in the 82nd minute, but Arsenal clung onto their slender advantage to start the season with a win for the second year running.
Ben Knapton
