Arsenal suffer another hamstring injury | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta confirmed bad news on Ben White after Saturday’s win over Wolves, revealing the defender has a hamstring injury.

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images

Though Arsenal picked up the three points they needed from Saturday’s game against Wolves, the circumstances of the 2-1 victory were certainly far from ideal.

Despite playing against easily the worst team in the division this season, the Gunners didn’t even score, with both of their goals coming from own goals. Wolves’ goal at the other end was just their ninth of the entire league campaign.

But before those late goals and own goals, there was bad news in the first half as Ben White was forced out of the contest with an injury.

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images

Speaking after the game, Mikel Arteta admitted White appears to have a hamstring problem, which will be assessed in the coming days.

“Obviously he hasn’t played a lot of minutes because of the previous knee issue that he had, then the moment he started to get some momentum he had to play a lot because we didn’t have any other solution,” Arteta said.

“We had to even risk Wilo [Saliba] today because probably it wasn’t the best call to play 90 minutes because we were buying tickets for another injury, but we don’t have anybody else. But yeah, that’s bad news for sure.

“It looks like a hamstring [injury], so we don’t know the extent of that, but probably tomorrow or the day after we’ll know more.”

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Given White’s repeated injury setbacks throughout the last couple of years, another muscle injury is the last thing he needed. It’s also very bad news for Arsenal, ramping up the pressure on Jurrien Timber to keep playing every minute.

Timber himself had a minor injury problem this week, but it looks like he’ll now be required to start pretty much every game over the festive period.

Arsenal do have youth options in the form of Josh Nichols and Marli Salmon, both of whom have made their first-team debuts. But finding a good moment to rest Timber and introduce the youngsters without taking a significant risk won’t be easy.

Arsenal fans will be keeping their fingers crossed that White’s injury turns out to be nothing serious.