Arsene Wenger was clearly delighted by the strong performance of his Arsenal players last night, but he was just as clearly devastated and almost at a loss for words that the victory over Borussia Dortmund exacted the heavy price of two more Gunners joining the ever growing and continued injury list that is in danger of destroying a second season in a row for Arsenal.
As reported by The Guardian, Wenger had nothing but bad news for us on the injury front, with the innoucuous lloking knock picked up by Mikel Arteta revealed as a calf problem that will see Arsenal without their captain and best deep lying midfielder for a lengthy period of time. Our young French striker Yaya Sanogo may have been hoping for a run in the side after bagging his first senior Arsenal goal, but he was forced off with a hamstring issue which is unlikely to be resolved quickly.
And the Frenchman also gave an update on Jack Wilshere and his ankle problem, declaring that the midfielder will see a medical specialist today to determine whether the ligament damage requires surgery or not, which would mean about three months in the treatment room.
Wenger said, “The injury situation is a problem because we have many games and we lost two players tonight. The first one is Arteta, who again has a calf problem and that looks quite serious, and we lost Sanogo as well on a hamstring problem. Wilshere sees a specialist, finally and we’ll know more on Thursday night.”
The manager also spoke about his hope that Arsenal would have a much stronger squad available for the knockout phase of the Champions League, but if things carry on the way they have been doing, we might nit even have 11 fit players by then.