Jurrien Timber is stepping up his return to full fitness and will feature for Arsenal's Under-21s match against Liverpool ahead of the North London Derby.

Mikel Arteta confirmed that the 22-year-old is closing in on a return to the first team after missing out on nearly the entire campaign. Timber has been out since the opening weekend of the Premier League season with an ACL injury.

Despite training with the first team for a few months now, he made a huge step in his recovery and has featured for the U21s. He played a total of 45 minutes in the 2-2 draw with Blackburn Rovers earlier this week and scored a goal within ten minutes of coming on and will now play another U21s game rather than feature in the matchday squad for Spurs today.

He will be keen for more against Liverpool and hope that he can return to first team action before the end of the season, with three games remaining after the North London Derby.

Speaking after the game at Ewood Park, Timber said: "It felt amazing, it felt like everything we worked for in the eight months out. It’s been eight months, you know.

"To be honest, I still don’t really know how to feel, but just being out there feels amazing. Even now, it feels strange for me as well. It's amazing, it's been eight months. I feel happy, feel blessed to be out there and it was nice scoring a goal as well."

The Dutch international joined the Gunners from Ajax for £34million last summer and went on to make two appearances before sustaining the serious injury.

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