Theo Walcott Offers Injury Update

Arsenal attacker Theo Walcott has given Arsenal.com an update on his recovery from a serious knee injury and says he hopes to be back playing during the early part of next season.

The 25-year-old was cruelly ruled out for six-to-nine months after rupturing his knee ligament during the closing stages of our FA Cup win over Tottenham at the Emirates back in January.

The injury not only meant he’d miss the second half of Arsenal’s season but also ruled him out of taking part in this summers World Cup. While some players who have suffered similar injuries have opted to rush themselves back to try and make Brazil 2014, Walcott insists he’s not pushing himself to return too early.

The winger confirmed his rehabilitation is on schedule with him currently working on muscle strength, and he hopes to put in a lot of hard work over the summer with the aim of returning to action early next season.

Theo told the clubs website:

“I’m not pushing myself to be fit for the World Cup or anything like that. I want to be back quickly of course, but safely too.

“I want to try and be back for the early part of next season. That’s the goal so there will be a lot of hard work throughout the summer and during the World Cup.”

“It’s nearly been four months now and my recovery has gone on track so far,”

“At the moment, I’m working on muscle strength and building muscle in my quad. I’ve got a lot of the flexion back and I’m always working on extension.

“A lot of the days are very similar but the four months have gone really quickly. I don’t see any point in being down in the dumps about the injury because it’s already happened and there are a lot of people with worse problems in the world.

“I’ll just get on with my work – I’m first in and last out on most days. I see the consultant soon too and hopefully he’ll give me the thumbs-up to push on even more. I’d love to be running in a few weeks.”

Walcott has proved to be a huge miss for Arsenal in recent months as without his pace, we’ve become a little predictable and pedestrian in the attacking third at times. His loss, along with Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil, derailed our title challenge and I have no doubt had the trio managed to stay fit for the majority of the season we’d still be right up there.

It’s good to hear Theo’s recovery is on track but we should know a lot more about a potential return date when he starts running again, because that’s when we should really find out if there are any issues with the knee joint.

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