Jack Wilshere to miss Arsenal and England games with ankle injury

• Wishere to miss games against Bayern Munich and Swansea
• Also out of San Marino and Montenegro World Cup qualifiers

by David Hytner 2 months ago

The Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger has confirmed that Jack Wilshere will be unable to play for three weeks with an inflamed ankle. He will miss Arsenal's Champions League second leg with Bayern Munich on Wednesday and England's forthcoming World Cup qualifying double-header against San Marino and Montenegro.

Wenger explained: "Jack Wilshere is out. He has an inflamed ankle, the other ankle to [the] one he injured. He will be out for three weeks and will not be available for Munich, Swansea and not for England.

"Hopefully for the Premier League he will miss only one game. After is an international break. We can slowly prepare him."

Wenger added that Wilshere had been working hard and that a break could also be helpful on a preventative level. "I could see in the last couple of games he had started to dig deep," he said. "He has played 30 games. For us it is not welcome but maybe for him it is not bad that he has a little breather.

"It is more about prevention. The specialist decided he needed it. He has some bone bruising. The last time it deteriorated into a stress fracture. That's what we don't want to happen.

"We trust people who are specialists in this area. He was out for 17 months and we had to deal with it; we must be able to deal with it for two or three games."

Wenger also confirmed that both Kieran Gibbs and Abou Diaby will be in the Arsenal squad that face Bayern Munich. "Kieran Gibbs is back in the squad. [Bacary] Sagna is not available. Diaby is in the squad and will have a test this morning," he said.