Santi Cazorla, injured in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Norwich City on 29th November, underwent successful surgery recently to repair damaged knee ligaments. He suffered the injury in the second half after a challenge from Ryan Bennett, but finished the contest anyway, as the team had already made all three substitutes. Arsène Wenger, after the game, described Cazorla as playing “on one leg” after the initial injury.
Despite the initial prognosis of a successful procedure, Cazorla recently told Cadena Cope that he expects to miss up to four months with the injury. Initial reports estimated his time out as three months. Cazorla has used this initial timeline as a challenge, and hopes to still meet the initial timeline.
I am trying to take it well. These are the things that happen in football and I am trying to recover as soon as possible. I have to be ready mentally to work and hopefully I can shorten the recovery time as much as possible.
I do not want to set a time but I want to play in three months. I do not want to extend it more if it is possible. Arsenal have told me it will be between three and four months, which may be closer to four. I have already said that I will work hard, I want to make everything I can to play in March but we will see how it goes. We are not going to force it if is going to be bad. But my priority is to play in March.
The club have told me to be calm and that when I return we will be in the finals (laughs). I hope so. The important thing is that the team do well and I recover as soon as possible.
Cazorla is currently resting and rehabilitating his injury in Spain, and admits to being very afraid when the initial collision occurred. He described the initial injury and subsequent minutes in the game.
I took a knock but played the whole game in pain. I limped a lot but had no signs that could have a knee injury until after the game. Doctors told me I had torn the ligaments and that I had to have surgery. It was a blow because after playing, even with pain and limping, you don’t expect that, I got really scared when I had the knock because I had so much pain and the leg had fallen asleep because I had been struck on the sciatic nerve.
I was a little bit scared but as the minutes passed and I was hot I didn’t have much pain so I could finish the game. Perhaps I should have asked to be subbed but I did not know I had such a serious injury, even the doctors tell me that they don’t understand how I could play so long with this injury.
After the game, Cazorla described trying to go about his regular business in the hopes that maybe the injury was not as bad as he initially feared. Eventually, he realised that something in the knee was not right.
I got home, tried walking and playing with my son and thinking that maybe it wasn’t that bad. But at the same time I couldn’t do some gestures and I felt the knee was unstable so I got mentally ready. I went for the scan with the idea that could be something serious.
With the time Cazorla is expected to miss, he will not be available for a large and important stretch of the season, and Arsène Wenger may choose to strengthen the squad in anticipation of his absence.
