Emery Dealt Fresh Injury Concern After Arsenal Star Picks Up Knock

By Gooner Mac on November 13, 2018

Arsenal have been dealt a fresh injury concern after Alexandre Lacazette rejected a call-up to the France squad due to a groin injury, as reported by the Mirror.

Lacazette was initially left out of Didier Deschamps’ 23-man squad that was announced last week but the Arsenal hitman was called-up on Monday afternoon as a replacement for Anthony Martial after the Manchester United forward pulled-out with a knee problem.

However, the Mirror claim Lacazette informed French bosses within hours that he had to reject the international call-up and make himself unavailable for selection due to a minor groin injury.

The newspaper says the 27-year-old doesn’t want to make the injury worse by playing for France during their upcoming Nations League group stage game with Holland or their friendly with Uruguay next week.

After discussions between the medical teams from Arsenal and France, the Mirror says it was agreed Lacazette would not link-up with the World Champions and would instead remain in north London to recover with Borussia Monchengladbach’s Alassane Plea being called-up as a replacement.

It was Lacazette’s first call-up for almost a year as he hasn’t featured for his country since scoring a brace against Germany in November 2017 and he narrowly missed out on a place in their World Cup squad.

No doubt the former Lyon star will be hugely disappointed to have been ruled out with a groin injury as he looks to try and force his way back in to Deschamps’ first team plans but it’s also a concern for Arsenal.

Lacazette has been a key player under Unai Emery in recent weeks as he’s scored six goals in his 14 appearances so far this season and has been our main striker up front with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang forced to play out on the wing.

With Danny Welbeck recently ruled out for several months with a broken ankle, the last thing we need is another forward being injured so I’m sure the Arsenal medical team will keep a close eye on Lacazette’s groin injury during the international break.

Let’s pray it doesn’t turn out to be anything serious as we need to get back to winning ways against Bournemouth next weekend after drawing our last three Premier League games and we also have huge matches against Tottenham and Manchester United on the horizon.