Wenger: Positive News On Wilshere Injury

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger claimed after yesterday’s win over Aston Villa that the news on Jack Wilshere is more positive than first thought.

News broke on Friday that Wilshere had suffered a set back (source: Sky Sports) in his recovery from a serious ankle injury and it was feared he could miss the rest of the season, and put his chances of playing at the Euro’s in doubt.

However, Wilshere was in the crowd during yesterday’s win over Villa and wasn’t on crutches or wearing a protective boot, which can only be a good sign. Speaking after the game, Wenger said to Arsenal.com that the initial news they’ve had is better than expected and he hoped it would only be a “short setback”:

“I spoke to Jack today. We have no real news yet. The first news we have had is better than expected. He is not in a boot, but I don’t know more. His morale looks quite good and I hope it will only be a short setback. There will be more tests this week.”

It would be amazing news if Jack could get back playing sooner than expected. With all the reports saying it looked likely that he’d be out for most of the season, having him back sooner would be a huge boost.

But lets not get too excited just yet, there is no official return date but it looks like we should know more in the next few days. Unfortunately we are unlikely to find out before the close of the transfer window on Tuesday, so if the news on Wilshere turns out to be bad, we won’t be able to bring anybody in.

We all know Arsene isn’t going to sign a midfielder without knowing for certain what the situation with Jack is, and he’ll likely take the risk with what we’ve got, which is a very dangerous situation to be in given the injury record of our current crop of central midfielders have; Arteta, Ramsey, Rosicky and Diaby (due back end of February) all have chequered injury records. So we’ll have to hope none of them pick up any more injuries if Wilshere is out for a long period of time.