Positive Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain Injury Update + Latest On Theo Walcott

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is expected to be fully fit for the start of Arsenal’s pre-season training while Theo Walcott’s recovery from his own knee injury is going well, according to the Mirror.

Oxlade-Chamberlain picked up a knee ligament injury during England’s pre-World Cup warm-up game against Ecuador in Miami three weeks ago but despite the problem, Roy Hodgson decided to keep him in the squad and take him to Brazil.

The 20-year-old initially made good progress in his recovery and had stepped up his training programme in the hope of being recovered in time to play some part in England’s final group game against Costa Rica on Tuesday evening, but he was cruelly ruled out after suffering a set-back after jarring his knee in training on Sunday.

Hodgson revealed the bad news on Monday, telling the press:

“He took part in training and we thought he was 100 per cent OK, but he took a ball… he intercepted a pass with the wrong part of his foot and it twisted his knee.

“It’s been a great shame for him, because we really thought he could have made an impact for us here and it’s been disappointing. He’s worked hard to get back to fitness so this is a shame for him. On the whole, we’ve been fortunate with injuries but he’s been the unlucky one.” Hodgson is quoted as saying by the Mirror.

This led to fears that The Ox had caused more damage to the knee ligament and could be set for an extended spell on the sidelines. However, the Mirror claim that England staff have been in touch with the Arsenal medical team to reassure them the latest set-back is a minor one and the midfielder will be available to start pre-season training as normal next month.

This is obviously great news as the last thing Oxlade-Chamberlain or Arsenal needed was for him to be on the sidelines again as he missed the large parts of last season with a knee injury. But the newspaper states that Arsenal are ‘relaxed’ about the latest injury and feel that the next months rest will actually do him good in the run-up to next season.

The Mirror also gave us a quick update on Theo Walcott’s recovery from his own knee injury and they claim that although the 25-year-old won’t be back for pre-season training, his rehabilitation is ‘going well’.

Walcott is expected to be back around September time and we’ve seen pictures lately of him working out in the gym as he steps up his recovery. The key time will be when he starts to run again, but hopefully he has a smooth transition back into the first team squad because he was sorely missed last year and is going to be a key player for us next season.