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Riccardo Calafiori was forced to watch on from home as his Arsenal colleagues picked up a 3-2 victory away against AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League on Saturday evening as the Italy international continues his recovery from injury.
The former Bologna centre-back has missed Arsenal’s last three Premier League fixtures with an unspecified injury that he aggravated during the warm-up of his side’s 2-1 win against Brighton on December 27.
Before the Brighton match, Calafiori had started in all but one of Arsenal’s 2025-26 Premier League fixtures, only missing one due to a yellow card suspension midway through December.
Calafiori did not travel with his teammates for the Bournemouth clash, and instead watched on from home.
Evanilson put Bournemouth 1-0 up on the night, only for Arsenal to fight back through Gabriel Magalhaes and a Declan Rice brace in the second half. Eli Junior Kroupi pulled one back for 3-2 with 15 minutes left to play.
Calafiori posted a brief video to his Instagram story on the night, celebrating Declan Rice’s first goal which sent Arsenal into a 2-1 lead. “Yesssss,” he wrote, along with a series of red heart emojis. The 23-year-old also had an Arsenal-themed chess board on display on his coffee table in the shot.
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