After Arsenal initially said Danny Welbeck would be out for three months following his knee surgery, Roy Hodgson has said it will be closer to six.

An injury which was supposed to initially only take three weeks to heal extended to three months after surgery. This was worrying enough. However, now, the England manager has set the cat amongst the pigeons with claims that the striker will in fact be out for six months.

“Welbeck bothers me now,” Hodgson said. “He has already been out for me since March so that’s over four months already. And now I hear it’s another six months, so I can only hope that Danny recovers a bit quicker and hits the ground running.”

What’s also worrying is how anxious Hodgson seems about the injury and while it’s not 100% clear what’s happening behind the scenes, for a manager who knows him to be expressing this level of concern, something serious has to be wrong.

The comments are incredibly concerning and bound to rile fans who already feel as if the club have been dishonest about the severity of Welbeck’s injury. To hear that Hodgson has been told a different story to us will undoubtedly go down like a led balloon.