Arsene Wenger confirmed in his post-match news conference that Jack Wilshere has suffered yet another injury setback. The Frenchman described the midfielder’s recovery from a fractured left fibula as ‘slow’ and that he expects the England international to spend a further two months on the sidelines.
It was expected that the hairline fracture would only take until December for Wilshere to recover.
He will not be back before February. That’s for sure. I say February but honestly I don’t know. I let him do his recovery. It’s going slowly.
Once he goes outside to train and is back again into sharp, hard work physically, you count five or six weeks. At the moment he is not there yet.
This latest setback means that after missing the whole first half of the season, Wilshere will also miss crunch games against Chelsea and Liverpool in January. The England international’s absence has been a major blow to the Gunners, especially after the fine form the 23-year-old displayed in pre-season.
As well as Wilshere, fellow central midfielders Santi Cazorla, Francis Coquelin and Mikel Arteta are all currently sidelined due to injury issues, leaving Aaron Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini as the two starting central midfielders in recent weeks.
Wenger seems to have responded to the current shortage of central midfielders, with strong reports that a deal with Basel over Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Elneny is close to being concluded.
