Arsene Wenger says he has plenty of central midfield options if Mikel Arteta is ruled out of Sunday’s game at Newcastle United.

Arteta was substituted in the closing minutes of Tuesday’s win against Wigan Athletic with a calf strain and he is now a major doubt for the trip to St James’ Park.

Wenger recognises that losing Arteta would be a blow but is confident that he has enough alternatives if the stand-in captain has to miss the game.

“Mikel is an important player,” Wenger told Arsenal Player. “In one game you can always compensate. It's more of a problem when a guy like that misses 10 games.

“[For] one game, we will find the resources to do without him if we have to. I'm convinced we can because he was out for a while during the season and I played all sorts of combinations.

“Arteta was out and we played Ramsey and Wilshere. A few times I played Coquelin, Diaby so we had a few combinations that could work.”