Arsenal ‘fear’ Bukayo Saka ‘will be out until March’ after tearing hamstring
Premier League side Arsenal are worried that Bukayo Saka could now miss at least two months with a torn hamstring, according to reports.
The Gunners winger picked up a hamstring injury in a 5-1 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday with Arsenal six points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool, who have a game in hand on them.
Saka hobbled off with Arsenal leading 2-1 and Mikel Arteta confirmed on Monday that the England international will now miss “many weeks.
The 23-year-old is now set to have scans with a specialist with the Daily Mail claiming that Arsenal ‘keen to investigate further’ before coming to a conclusion about how long Saka will be out.
The report adds that Arsenal ‘fear’ he ‘will be out until March’:
‘However, Mail Sport understands there are concerns that Saka’s lay-off will stretch into late February or even early March — news that comes as a major blow to Arsenal as they try to reduce Liverpool’s six-point lead over them at the top of the table. Arsenal doctors are reluctant to put a timescale on Saka’s return given his track record of recovering swiftly from injuries.’
On Saka’s injury, Arsenal boss Arteta told reporters: “It’s not looking good. He’s going to be out for many weeks.”
On whether he feared the winger could miss the rest of the season, Arteta said: “No [there’s no fear]. I’m very optimistic he’ll be back before the end of the season.”
When asked if Saka’s injury was as a result of playing too much, the Arsenal boss added: “It’s probably an accumulation of a number of seasons. Bukayo and Declan [Rice], they’ve played over 130 games in two seasons so what’s going to happen in the second one, the third one, the fourth one? If that continues the same way, it’s probably unsustainable.
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“And we have to find ways to physically turn them into monsters. That they can cope with anything. The fact that you play and recover is not a good pattern because you don’t train. And the body needs to train. You start to lose a lot of factors in the physical aspect that’s key to performance.
“That’s a challenge which, OK, we’re trying to find ways to do it.”
When asked how Saka responded to being injured, Arteta replied: “He was gutted.
“You can tell he’s not been injured [seriously before] because he was really emotional, he was really down. We need to lift him up because he’s part of what we do. It’s part of his job, and he will be fine, but he’s going to need a few days.
“He’s going to immediately realise that he’s so important in that dressing room. His energy level, his body language, the way he communicates with the rest of the team, because it’s the only way at the moment that he can help, so he better do that well.”
