Walcott Injury Update: Fears Grow Over Wingers Groin Injury

Arsenal attacker Theo Walcott hopes to resume full training within the next week as he looks to overcome a niggling groin injury that’s threatening to ruin his season, according to reports.

Walcott made his long-awaited comeback from knee ligament surgery with a late substitute appearance during our 3-0 win over Burnley at the Emirates on November 1st.

It was his first taste of action in over 10 months having been sidelined with a serious knee injury that he picked up against Tottenham way back in early January, but his progress was hampered after he suffered a groin injury while away with the England squad last month.

The problem was only thought to be a minor one at first but the 25-year-old’s recovery has been worryingly slow and it appears the injury is much worse than the club initially perceived as the Mirror are reporting that Theo has been undergoing intensive treatment over the past two weeks in a bid to prevent him having to undergo surgery.

The newspaper suggests that the next seven days are going to be critical because if Walcott isn’t able to overcome the injury and rejoin full training this week, then the club fear they’ll have no option but to operate to cure the problem.

Arsene Wenger admitted at his press conference on Friday that Walcott was ‘still struggling’ with his groin but hoped an injection would reduce the inflammation. He told Arsenal.com:

Walcott is still struggling with his groin inflammation. I think he has an injection today to take care of that. Hopefully he can be available again after that. Galatasaray will be too early for him.

If the injection works and Theo is able to return to training later this week then he should be available for the festive period when we take on the likes of Liverpool, Queens Park Rangers and West Ham. However, if the treatment isn’t effective, then it looks like the England international is facing yet more surgery which will rule him out for another extended period of time.

The Mirror claim that Walcott will be reassessed early next week when we’ll learn whether the injection has been effective, so let’s pray for some good news as to lose Theo again would be a huge blow in what’s already been a frustrating season on the injury front.

As bad as our performance was against Stoke yesterday, it’s worth remembering that we were without as many as 11 first team squad players while regulars Wojciech Szczesny and Laurent Koscielny were also missing from the starting eleven.

There’s not a squad in the world that could cope with that number of injuries at the same time, so if we’re to turn our season around then we need to get our best players back on the pitch and Theo is certainly one of the most important.