Wenger Confirms Arsenal Quartet Are Close To Injury Return

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Aaron Ramsey, Mikel Arteta and David Ospina are all edging closer to making their return from injury.

Speaking ahead of tonight’s Champions League showdown with Bayern Munich, Arsene gave a team news update to Arsenal.com and revealed that Arteta and Ospina will be the first to return with the duo set to resume training on Friday.

Arteta has been on the sidelines with an ankle injury in recent weeks while Ospina has been nursing a shoulder problem that he picked up while on international duty with Colombia a month ago.

However, the pair are now set to return to training later this week and they could soon be joined by Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ramsey with Wenger also confirming they could be back after the upcoming international break.

Oxlade-Chamberlain suffered a hamstring injury during our 3-0 Capital One Cup loss at Sheffield Wednesday last week while Ramsey has been out since picking up his own hamstring injury against Bayern two weeks ago.

The news will be a welcome boost as we’ve seen the squad decimated by injuries in recent weeks and Hector Bellerin became the latest casualty after he was ruled out of tonight’s trip to Munich with a groin injury.

Wenger confirmed the problem is a minor one but refused to put a firm time-scale on his return so we’ll have to wait and see whether he’s back in contention to face Tottenham on Sunday.

Arsene told the clubs website:

on Arteta, Ospina and other injuries…

They are all very close. I think Arteta will be back in full training on Friday, Ospina as well. After the break, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ramsey [could be] back as well.

on the team news…

The team news is that, from Saturday’s squad, we lost Bellerin, who will not be available tomorrow night. We have nobody else back, so that means he has been replaced in the squad by Jeff Reine-Adelaide.

on Hector’s injury…

We have to wait a little bit. It’s not a big problem but it’s a small groin problem.

We currently have nine players on the treatment table but it looks like Bellerin, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arteta, Ramsey and Ospina will be back soon. Theo Walcott should then be the next to return at some point later this month but we’ll have to wait until the New Year before seeing Jack Wilshere, Danny Welbeck and Tomas Rosicky back in action as they continue to nurse long-term injuries.