After an innocuous knee injury suffered at the end of April, Danny Welbeck was supposed to play again before the end of the season.

He was ruled out of Arsenal’s penultimate home game against Swansea City in May, but he was supposed to be back for the FA Cup Final at the latest.

“He will play again this season. It’s nothing major but he will be short for the weekend,” Arsène Wenger told the press. And then we waited.

We saw Welbeck on the bus with the rest of the team as they celebrated the FA Cup win, and we hoped to watch him back in action during pre-season.

“Welbeck’s injury was at the start very minor. It’s bone bruising but took much longer to settle than we expected. I expect him to play a part in the Emirates Cup at the end of the month,” Arsène Wenger said when pre-season started in July. But the Emirates Cup came around and Welbeck was nowhere to be seen.

September rolled around, the transfer window closed, and Arsenal announced that the England forward would be out until around new year after undergoing surgery to solve the issue. Then last week, when there had been no news for months, there was a report that Welbeck had suffered another setback. The club denied the story, but it now appears to have been true.

“He is still not available because of a bone bruising,” Wenger has confirmed. “That deteriorated and it is a big blow to us because we cannot rotate.”

Another setback, a huge blow for Arsenal and an even bigger one for Welbeck. You start to wonder whether or not we’ll see him again this season at all.