Arsenal striker Kai Havertz is expected to be sidelined until early to mid-January due to a setback he suffered while recovering from minor knee surgery last month. The forward has been sidelined since August 17, when he injured his knee in Arsenal’s first Premier League game of the season against Manchester United.
Havertz underwent knee surgery a week later. According to the Daily Mail, the 26-year-old was just a week away from rejoining the matchday squad in November when he suffered a stumble in his final training session. The German expects to be ready for match-day selection by the middle of next month, but has not resumed training since the complications.
It is currently thought that Havertz could be included in Arsenal’s squad for the league game against Liverpool on January 8, but he is more likely to return for the FA Cup third round tie against Portsmouth three days later.
Havertz has had an injury-plagued year last season, tearing his hamstring muscle during the north London club’s warm-weather training camp in February. Asked about Havertz’s injury earlier this month, Arteta said: “It’s a matter of a few weeks. We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks. He’s doing really well and doing some things on the pitch, but I think he needs time.”
This development will worry the Arsenal manager as Victor Gokeres has endured a difficult start to his career at the Emirates. The striker, who moved to north London for £63.5m in the summer, has scored just six goals this season.
Arteta has recently urged his detractors to “leave him alone” but accepts the forward must find the back of the net more consistently. He commented: “We were very excited because we brought in a proven scorer with probably the best stats in Europe.
“He’s a player who comes to a different league, the most demanding league in the world, and what happens if he doesn’t score in five or six games?
“That was my only question for him: ‘What are you going to do if you don’t score in five or six games? Can you handle that? And what’s going to happen in the next 100 games?’
“And that’s what we have to look at: the samples are very small.
“So leave him alone, let him do what he does best, stay behind him, and I think things will go in a good direction.”
