Mikel Arteta has confirmed a huge injury blow with the news that Mikel Merino is facing ‘weeks’ on the sidelines with a fractured shoulder suffered in his first training session with the club.
Merino joined Arsenal from Real Sociedad earlier this week in a deal worth an initial £27.4m with a further £4.2m due in performance based add-ons.
The 28-year-old was brought in to add some much needed physicality to the Arsenal midfield as he has some of the ground and aerial duel stats in all of Europe’s top five league’s.
Merino was in-line to replace Thomas Partey – who’s suffered serious injury issues since joining the Gunners from Atletico Madrid – in Arsenal’s midfield alongside Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard.
The Spaniard was set to make his debut against Brighton this weekend, however, those plans have been shelved as Arteta has confirmed that Merino is facing ‘weeks’ on the sidelines.
Fracture
The Gunners boss revealed that his new signing suffered a fractured shoulder following a clash with Gabriel Magalhaes during Merino’s very first training session at London Colney.
There was also bad news regarding the availability of Gabriel Jesus as the striker will miss out again this weekend with a groin injury. Although Arteta appeared to suggest the Brazilian would be back soon.
There wasn’t as much optimism around the update on Takehiro Tomiyasu’s condition, with Arteta unable to provide a timeframe over the defenders potential return to action.
Arteta told reporters at his pre-match press conference:
On Merino
“Yes, very unfortunate. Yesterday he had a collision and he has a shoulder injury unfortunately. It looks like he’s going to be out for a few weeks.
“He was really excited and everything was looking really good. He landed on the floor and (Big) Gabi landed on top of him and it looks like he has a small fracture probably.”
“We have to see. He was in so much pain. We’ll have to do some more tests on that and then we’ll have more conclusive answers.”
On Jesus
“He is progressing really well,” Arteta said of Jesus. “He had a little muscle injury and he is doing quite a lot of stuff already, so we expect him to be with us pretty soon.”
On Tomiyasu
“At the moment, it’s difficult to say,” he said of when the Japanese international is likely to return. “It’s a bit slow the process of the first phase of that injury. It’s probably for the medical team to say more on that.”
Merino’s injury will be a huge blow to Arsenal as they head in to a vital run of fixtures that see’s them take on Brighton tomorrow, before nightmare away trips to Tottenham and Man City after the international break.
The Gunners also have Champions League and Carabao Cup fixtures to contend with over the coming weeks/months, so losing Merino will be hugely disappointing.
