Let’s wait and see on Kai’s knee

Morning all, happy Friday to you.

Let’s start with some reporting around Kai Havertz and ongoing concerns over his knee. I did wonder this week about the fact he hasn’t had minutes when we had the opportunity to give them to him, but in the absence of clear information, you could easily see why Arsenal are being cautious about his rehabilitation and return to regular action.

There have been some whispers behind the scenes that this injury is a bit more complicated than first thought, and would go some way to explain where we are now. Back towards the end of last year there were reports of a set-back, but my understanding is that it was more about a reaction to increasing the load as part of his normal recovery than him re-injuring himself or anything like that.

As Arsenal fans I think we’re almost conditioned to fear the worst when it comes to any injury, and the medical team do find themselves in the spotlight – not least because we seem to have so many issues to deal with. It’s probably fair then to point out that we have had players return more quickly from injury than first expected, so if they get stick for absences, perhaps they deserve some credit for those instances. For example, here’s Mikel Arteta talking about Cristhian Mosquera after he started against Inter:

Mosquera is supposed to be another two weeks before coming back, but the medical staff and the sports scientists, they’ve done incredibly well with him to work every single hour to give him the chance to play. Today he had to play against top strikers, I think he’s done an incredible job.

Gabriel’s return from the hamstring he did playing for Brazil was earlier than expected as well, although even those ‘success’ stories give us pause for thought. What if it’s too soon? Are we asking too much, too early? Ultimately though, we have to remember we’re dealing with people, not machines. The human body is weird and complicated. There’s always some degree of variance, even with best practice, the best people, the best facilities, and so on.

So, when it comes to Kai, let’s just hope this is a situation where a more cautious approach to his return is all that’s required. He seems to be training regularly, as far as we can see anyway, but clearly we can only glean so much from pictures, whereas internally they know a lot more. Perhaps the upcoming game against FC Kairat will tell us something about where he is, and how much we can realistically expect from him.

We’re fortunate in that we have two fit strikers available in the shape of Viktor Gyokeres and Gabriel Jesus, and that means we don’t have to take any risks by forcing the issue with Havertz. Hopefully he still has a role to play this season, and it’ll be interesting to hear if it’s something Mikel Arteta is asked about at his press conference today and, if so, what kind of an answer he gives.

It’s also kinda ‘funny’ (but not the really funny kind of funny), that just days before his hamstring injury in Dubai, the manager described Havertz as as ‘genetic powerhouse’, saying:

He’s played a lot of football but his robustness, his availability is unbelievable. He is a player that anything you ask him, he is happy to do: to run in zone six, to be very robust, to make long distances. His body absorbs everything.

Since those comments, almost one year ago, he has yet to start a game, suffering that aforementioned hammy, and then the knee injury on the opening day of the season against Man Utd. Obviously it’s just an unfortunate coincidence, but if he feels like lauding the physical prowess and injury-free nature of any of our other players, someone please stop him!

Beyond that, there’s not much going on until the presser later. We expect Ethan Nwaneri’s loan move to Marseille to be confirmed, and there’s another small Arsenal connection as he’ll be joining at the same time as Quinten Timber, Jurrien’s twin brother who has left Feyenoord after falling out with Robin van Persie (easily done, I’d imagine). Roberto de Zerbi said:

As far as Timber and Nwaneri, they are two strong players and I’m really happy to have them in the squad. They could be ready as early as Saturday.

So, we’ll have half an eye on Ligue 1 between now and May, but for the press conference stories later, stay tuned to Arseblog News for that. For more on Ethan, Tim’s column this week touches on his situation here.

Until then, have a good one.