Arsenal midfielder Louie Copley has revealed that his preseason outing ended with a serious knee injury after the club’s 3-1 defeat to Real Betis.<\/p>\n
Copley was introduced at half time and briefly filled in at right back, but his first appearance of the summer lasted only 11 minutes before he was forced off. The injury has since been diagnosed as an ACL problem.<\/p>\n
On social media, Copley wrote: \u201cWords can\u2019t describe how I\u2019m feeling right now, to making my preseason debut for the team I\u2019ve grown up supporting to finding out I\u2019ve ruptured my ACL,\u201d he reflected on social media.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe road ahead won\u2019t be easy but I\u2019ll give everything to come back stronger and better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing leaves Copley facing a long recovery, with the possibility that he could return later in the coming season if rehabilitation goes well. For now, though, expectations will be kept in check as he begins a difficult spell on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
His setback also removes a player who had been trying to make a case at right back, a position Arsenal have already had to manage carefully. Jurri\u00ebn Timber has spent months out with a groin issue, while Ben White has also dealt with significant fitness problems in the past. White has been starting this summer, with Copley being given the chance to provide cover before the knee injury struck.<\/p>\n
Arsenal’s defensive concerns are not limited to the right side. William Saliba is set for a lengthy period out because of a back problem, and that has already pushed Cristhian Mosquera, another right-back option, into central defence alongside Gabriel.<\/p>\n
For Copley, the injury is a harsh interruption to a preseason that had offered him a chance to step forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copley\u2019s preseason debut ended early, and Arsenal now face another defensive injury concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303],"tags":[242,180,1980],"class_list":["post-18344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","tag-injury","tag-player-news","tag-pre-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}