Lucas Torreira will miss 8-10 weeks while he recovers from the fractured ankle sustained in the 2-0 win over Portsmouth last week.
While there’s an outside chance he could feature in the FA Cup final, the injury effectively rules him out for the rest of the season.
The news from Arsenal’s medical teamcomes as a big blow to the player who was starting to look like his old self having been restored to a holding midfield role under Mikel Arteta.
In his absence, the Spaniard will now be heavily reliant on rotating Dani Ceballos and Matteo Guendouzi alongside Granit Xhaka. We wish Lucas all the best with his recovery.
Our injury problems don’t stop with our little Uruguayan. Having sat out Saturday’s win over West Ham, it looks like Shkodran Mustafi is also a doubt for Wednesday’s trip to the Etihad. The German has a tight right thigh.
On the full-back front, Sead Kolasinac needs another three weeks to recover from his shoulder problem and Hector Bellerin,as revealed by David Ornstein, is nursing a groin issue. In better news, Kieran Tierney is back in full training and will be joined this week by new boy Cedric Soares. We wouldn’t be surprised to see them getting minutes with the under-23s at some point.