Arsenal announce Granit Xhaka to miss 3 months

Granit Xhaka will miss three months with the knee injury he sustained against Tottenham. The club announced that the Swiss midfielder suffered a “significant injury” to his medial collateral ligament but that he would not need surgery. Initially, there were reports that he might miss 6 to 8 weeks but that a further visit to a specialist was pending. Unfortunately, that specialist visit determined the injury was more significant than initially thought.

This stinks. Arsenal were fully healthy ahead of the North London Derby for the first time in recent memory. So of course, because we can’t have nice things, as soon as the training room door closed behind Mohamed Elneny, the last player to leave it, the Gunners picked up a serious injury.

A three month recovery timetable has Xhaka returning sometime after Christmas, right around the turn of the year. He’ll miss anywhere between 13-15 matches. In a “funny” turn of fate, Xhaka’s first match back could be away to Tottenham on January 15th coming out of an international break.

Best wishes to Granit for a speedy, uneventful recovery.