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Report: Arsenal hit with 'false positive' coronavirus test ahead of season restart
Jul 23, 2019; Landover, MD, USA; Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil (10) during the first half of a match in the International Champions Cup soccer series at FedEx Field. Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

Report: Arsenal hit with 'false positive' coronavirus test ahead of season restart

Arsenal have looked out of sorts since the Premier League resumed play on June 17 amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, as the Gunners fell 3-0 to Manchester City and then surrendered a stoppage-time winner to Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.

Attacking midfielder Mesut Ozil was dropped from the lineup, and defender Pablo Mari suffered a season-ending ankle injury.

On Monday, The Athletic's David Ornstein reported that manager Mikel Arteta also had to deal with one of his players testing positive for the coronavirus ahead of last week's clash with City.

Ornstein wrote that the unnamed player and two other footballers exposed to that individual missed three training sessions due to self-isolation guidelines enforced whenever somebody associated with a club tests positive for COVID-19. Once antigen and antibody tests for the person in question came back negative, all three men were welcomed back to training. They traveled to Manchester for the City game.

Inaccuracies of coronavirus tests around the world have impacted multiple sports organizations. Per Sky Sports, Norwich City midfielder Marco Stiepermann was believed to be a victim of a supposed "false positive" test result last week.

Middleweight Ian Heinisch was nearly pulled from this month's UFC 250 show after a cornerman tested positive for COVID-19. That cornerman delivered a negative result upon retesting. 

Zac Wassink

Zac Wassink is a longtime sports news writer and PFWA member who began his career in 2006 and has had his work featured on Yardbarker, MSN, Yahoo Sports and Bleacher Report. He is also a football and futbol aficionado who is probably yelling about Tottenham Hotspur at the moment and who chanted for Matt Harvey to start the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series at Citi Field. You can find him on X at @ZacWassink

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