Mikel Arteta has described the lesion in Kai Havertz's sticks as “an accident that expects to happen” and issued a scream of meeting to its players to show “what you are done” in their absence.
The 25 -year -old will undergo surgery and the rest of the season will be lost after maintaining the problem while defending a set piece during the club's winter training break in Dubai earlier this week.
Arsenal now does not have a recognized number 9 with Gabriel Jesus also aside until next season after knee surgery, while his attack options are further exhausted by injuries to Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
The northern London team chose not to sign a striker in January after having an offer of £ 40 million ($ 50.3 million) by Ollie Watkins rejected by Aston Villa, although Arteta refused to rule out the possibility of signing a free agent To help support Leanddro Trosssard, who is now likely to lead his reference line against Leicester City on Saturday.
“We were having a great camp in Dubai, recharging, training, having free time and connecting again with nature and a different environment and then the injury occurred in a very unexpected way, no doubt,” said Arteta.
“So it is a great blow, obviously, due to the injuries we have. But fortunately, we have gone through this season. We have played without Gabriel Magalhães, without William Saliba, without Ben White the whole season, Takehiro Tomiyasu all season, [Riccardo] Calafiori two months, [Mikel] Merino two months, Martin Ødegaard two months, Bukayo Saka three months, Gabriel Jesús, all of them. So that's. That is the challenge ahead.
“I love and expect because we are still where we are with all the things I mentioned in addition to playing four times with 10 men, blah, blah, so we see what the team is made of.”
Pressing for the impact that the schedule is having on the lesions, Arteta said: “The evidence we can provide is very limited in many aspects and each case is very different. Obviously, some of them know are based on load and minutes, It is inevitable.
“We have players who have been injured who have played 130 games in the last two seasons. So, in the end, it is an accident that expects it to happen. If you continue loading, loading and loading. This season, is it the accumulation of that is that ESO stress?
“It is very difficult to point out something, but the schedule is super demanding. For certain players, especially for explosive players, it becomes a real problem.
“We train less than ever. You see our data, we train less than ever. It's normal. There is no time to train. We talk about training only what happens on the grass.
“The biggest problem is that it does not train the muscle. That is the problem. Therefore, the muscle is not trained. And then exposes the muscle and the tendon to an exposure that cannot be absorbed because the tendon needs 72 hours to recover.
“So many people talk about what we are doing outside, they are inside, when you have to load the muscle for two, three, eight weeks. You have not trained it, the risk of injuries is much larger.
“One because the muscle and tendon have not recovered and then are not prepared to absorb the load and stress that will put it every three days.”
Although the transfer window is closed, clubs can still sign the players and Arteta left the door open to a possible movement. The former Chelsea striker Diego Costa, the former Real Madrid striker and the Seville Mariano Díaz and Carlos Vela striker, who joined Arsenal in 2005 before leaving in 2012, are among the strikers in the list of free agents.
“We explore all possible situations and make a decision from there,” said Arteta.
