By Samuel A. December 29, 2024
Bukayo Saka’s hamstring injury has been confirmed to keep him out of action until at least March, following his surgery, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has revealed.
The Gunners moved back up to second in the Premier League table with a 1-0 victory over Ipswich at the Emirates in their first game without the bright youngster, after Chelsea dropped an important three points against Fulham. Arteta confirmed to the press before the Ipswich game that Saka would be sidelined for “many weeks”. “He has had a procedure and everything went well, but unfortunately he will be out for many, many weeks,” said the Arsenal gaffer.
“It will be more than two months. I don’t know exactly how much longer. It will depend on how the scar tissue starts to heal, the first week or so, and the mobility of that. It is very difficult to say. The replacement of Bukayo is going to be the team. There were moments where it flowed well tonight and moments where you could see there is still work to do. But I am certain that we are going to do that. We have to rely on the team and not the individual.”
The length of Saka’s injury will come as a significant blow to Arteta, who is bidding to oversee Arsenal’s first Premier League title in two decades.
Arteta continued: “I am very happy with the victory and the clean sheet and big parts of the game. They are difficult opposition and we are playing so many games. You see that teams are winning from small margins. Today we could have made that margin bigger but we didn’t and we held our nerve in the last few minutes to defend well.
We should have scored more. We had big openings in the second half, the big header of Gabriel from one yard, but the team was consistent and conceded nothing and that is something that will always give us the chance to win games.”
Up next, Arsenal will be in action against Brentford on New Year’s Day.
