Granit Xhaka has confirmed that he also suffered two bone breaks along with his knee ligament damage, but the midfielder is hoping to be back within three-to-four weeks.
Granit Xhaka returned from his three-card suspension picked up against Manchester City and promptly picked up an injury.
To be fair, it was an unfortunate injury.
Thomas Partey bundled Lucas Moura over and, as the Spurs man fell, he landed on Xhaka’s leg, bending his knee and ankle in opposite directions.
It was immediately clear that the news would not be good and he hasn’t been seen in an Arsenal shirt since that game at the end of September.
Now back in individual training, Xhaka has been speaking to the media about the injury.
“I hope to celebrate my comeback as soon as possible,” Xhaka told the Swiss publication, Blick.
“I’ve been gone seven weeks and a few days now.”
They then confirmed that Xhaka tore both his inner and outer ligament in his knee, before the 29-yer-old added, “the bone was also broken twice.
“The problem with the bone is that it takes so long. I hope to be back in the next three or four weeks. ”
Arsenal have repeatedly said that Xhaka would not be back until next year so if he does make it before the start of 2022, that would represent an early return from what was a very nasty injury.
Next year, you’ll be able to see just how that was possible…
4/10/21
Granit Xhaka agrees to let Amazon document his injury recovery
Granit Xhaka has agreed to let the Amazon Prime camera crew follow his recovery from injury for the upcoming All or Nothing documentary.
David Ornstein reports for The Athletic that the public are likely to get an inside look at Granit Xhaka’s recovery from his recent injury, as he’s agreed to let the Amazon Prime cameras dedicate time to covering the process.
There are no guarantees much or any of it will make it into the documentary, but they’ve already been capturing footage over the last week.
Ornstein adds that there’s optimism at Arsenal that Xhaka will return as quickly as possible, given his reputation around the club as being a model professional on the training pitches.
Arsenal confirmed earlier this week that Xhaka has a significant injury to his medial knee ligament. After specialist consultation, they’ve determined he doesn’t require surgery, but he will need a three-month rehabilitation period.
Speaking to the media ahead of Arsenal’s game against Brighton this weekend, Mikel Arteta admitted it was a blow to lose the midfielder and others will need to step up.
“It’s really bad news personally for Granit. He’s had a couple of incidents already this season with Covid, with suspension and now with long-term injury,” Arteta began.
“Obviously, he’s a big player for us, someone who is really important, and he will be missed. Other players have to step in.”
The Arsenal manager then went on to point out that whilst the medial knee ligament injury is certainly very serious, it could have been even worse.
“First of all, it’s obviously a significant injury but he probably escaped an even worse injury than he could have had from the action because that action for the cruciate ligament is a tricky one,” Arteta added.
“It’s what it is. His mentality is top. He knows what he needs to do now. Hopefully, he can escape surgery as well. That is something that is really, really important and after that start preparing himself in the best possible way because time flies.”