Bukayo Saka Injury Leaves Arsenal Facing Anxious Wait
Bukayo Saka walked out of the Allianz Arena under his own steam on Wednesday night, but Arsenal’s season left on a limp.
Their talisman lasted only a few minutes of the 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich, pulling up after a simple pass under no pressure, then sinking to the turf. No heavy challenge, no obvious twist. Just a sharp signal that something was badly wrong. Mikel Arteta’s face on the touchline told its own story; his words 24 hours later underlined it.
“It doesn’t look good at all,” he admitted after the game. By Friday, the picture had not cleared.
Saka underwent scans on Thursday, yet the first round of tests did not provide the definitive answer Arsenal wanted. The club have sent him for another MRI, with Arteta revealing the extent of the swelling has complicated the diagnosis.
“He's got another MRI this afternoon because he had quite a lot of fluid in the area so it was difficult to understand the extent of the injury,” Arteta said at his pre-Everton press conference. “We will know more tomorrow.
“We need a few more scans and opinions from the specialists. When a player is struggling to walk without any pain, he's restricted in movement, they are not good signs. Let's be a little bit patient so we can give a definitive assessment.”
Saka was later seen leaving the Allianz limping but without crutches. That offered a sliver of reassurance, yet Arsenal know the numbers as well as the fans do: this is the one player they can least afford to lose.
Since the start of the 2020/21 season, Arsenal have won 64.2 per cent of their Premier League games when Saka plays. Without him, that figure drops to 53.3 per cent. Those are not just marginal gains; that is the difference between title pace and top-four scrap.
A stretched squad out wide
The timing could hardly be worse for Arteta. His options on the flanks are already thin.
Christos Tzolis remains sidelined with a hamstring problem picked up on international duty with Greece earlier this month. The club also cashed in on Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard in the summer, trimming both wage bill and depth in one stroke.
Now the safety net has gone. Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze will be asked to shoulder the creative load in the coming weeks, both capable of flair and incision but neither yet carrying Saka’s reliability or volume of output across a season. Behind them, Max Dowman stands to benefit most from the reshuffle, with the pathway to minutes suddenly wide open.
The pressure that usually rests on Saka’s shoulders now spreads across a much younger, less proven group. For a side chasing major honours, that is a bold test of the club’s planning and Arteta’s capacity to adapt on the fly.
Defensive boost as Hincapie returns
There is at least one piece of good news for Arsenal before Everton’s visit to the Emirates on Saturday.
Piero Hincapie is back. The defender, who injured his ankle on the Emirates pitch during a training session held immediately after last month’s win over Leeds, has missed the last three matches but has now rejoined full training.
He returned to the grass earlier this week, working through individual drills on Tuesday before stepping back in with the group on Friday. Arteta confirmed he will be available for selection at the weekend, offering fresh legs and balance to a back line that has been forced to shuffle.
Tzolis, though, will not make it. The Everton clash comes too soon in his recovery from that hamstring issue, although he is understood to be closing in on a return and could rejoin the squad in the near future if his progress continues.
William Saliba, meanwhile, is edging forward in his rehabilitation from the serious back injury sustained at the World Cup. The centre-back has not played a minute this season and remains out of contention, but the club are encouraged by his trajectory.
So Arsenal go into another pivotal league fixture with a defence slowly knitting back together and an attack suddenly stripped of its most reliable weapon. The scans on Saka will bring clarity soon enough. The real question is whether they arrive in time to keep Arsenal’s campaign on track.
