Arsenal Suffer Fresh Injury Blow After Star Picks Up Muscle Injury

Arsenal have been dealt a fresh injury blow after Mohamed Elneny suffered a calf problem while away with Egypt at the African Cup of Nations, according to the Mirror.

Elneny has been away with country in Gabon this month and helped Egypt progress to the quarter finals after topping Group D ahead of Ghana.

However, the Mirror are reporting that the Gunners midfielder has now been forced to miss tonight’s last 8 clash with Morocco after picking up a calf muscle injury in training.

The newspaper says Elneny’s injury was confirmed by Egypt officials but they’ve given no further information on the severity of the problem or how long the midfielder could be on the sidelines for.

No doubt Arsene Wenger will be sweating over Elneny’s fitness as his injury comes at a time when we are desperately low on centre midfield options.

Granit Xhaka has just started a four-game suspension and Santi Cazorla is still recovering from ankle surgery and isn’t expected back until the beginning of March at the earliest.

That leaves us with just Aaron Ramsey and Francis Coquelin as regular central midfield options – although Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain should have played his way in to Wenger’s thoughts with a superb display against Southampton yesterday.

If Egypt lose this evening then Wenger would have been hoping to have Elneny available again for Sunday’s clash with Chelsea, however, his participation is now in serious doubt due to his injury.

If Egypt progress to the semi finals and Elneny’s injury doesn’t turn out to be serious, then he’s certain to miss the trip to Stamford Bridge as he’ll either have to play in a third-place play-off or feature in the final at the AFCON.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens but if Elneny’s injury is serious then he’s expected to head back to north London to begin his treatment and we’ll have to pray we don’t suffer any more injuries in midfield.