Arsenal FC have seen their injury situation go from bad to much worse on this Saturday. Already reeling from the prospect of top notch forward/midfielder Kai Havertz being on the sidelines for a significant amount of time (knee injury), their 5-0 thrashing of Leeds United today certainly came with a hefty price.
The most brand name player on the club, Bukayo Saka, as well as team captain Martin Odegaard, had to both be taken off against Leeds today.
Odegaard suffered a shoulder injury, but initially kept on playing despite the problem. Eventually, he had to be replaced, and Ethan Nwaneri came on.
It’s good news that he was able to keep on playing, but the bad news is that he’ll require a diagnostic scan to assess the severity of the issue.
“Martin felt something in his shoulder when he landed,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta sad in his postgame news conference.
“We don’t know [how bad it is] — we’ll have to scan him tomorrow and understand a bit better.”
Moving on to Saka, he suffered an injury in his left hamstring.
It is the opposite hamstring, not the one that was injured so badly last season, it kept him out for four months.
The Arsenal boss confirmed that this situation is indeed substantial.
Arteta articulated: “Bukayo, while he was running with the ball, carrying the ball, wrestling with the defender, he felt something in his hamstring.
“So let’s see. I think it’s the other [hamstring] — It’s not the same one as the previous injury. For Bukayo to come off, for sure it looks like something that is significant.”
In addition to Havertz, Saka and Odegaard, Ben White is also currently an injury concern, as he missed today’s match due to an unspecified/undisclosed condition.
The injuries are indeed piling up, and they come at the same time that a crunch clash approaches.
Arsenal visits Liverpool on Super Sunday next weekend, in the final match before the first international break and the obvious headliner of week three.
Arteta summed up today’s developments perfectly.
“Those [injuries] are the negatives of the day,” he said. “But we are two weeks [into the season] and we already lost Kai, Martin and Bukayo.
“So it tells you how well-equipped you have to be in this league to manage and to maintain the level that we want.”
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter