Arsenal head into the new term missing one of their most influential players after Bukayo Saka picked up a hamstring problem in the second match of the Premier League season.<\/p>\n
The injury occurred during Arsenal\u2019s 5\u20130 win over Leeds United and manager Mikel Arteta has warned the winger faces several weeks on the sidelines. The Gunners struggled for cutting edge without Saka and drew a blank in their recent defeat to title rivals Liverpool at Anfield.<\/p>\n
On Saka\u2019s condition Arteta said: “Bukayo is doing better, but he will be out for a few weeks, unfortunately.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo surgery, it\u2019s not as bad as the previous one. Very unfortunate to pick it up because it\u2019s on the other side. It\u2019s an action that requires full power from him. Then, he clashed with the opponent; he needed to change pace again, and he felt something. So he will be out for a couple of weeks.” <\/p>\n
Saka\u2019s latest setback follows a run of hamstring problems last season. He first suffered an issue in October 2024 while on international duty with England and missed two weeks. A more serious hamstring tear in December required surgery after an injury sustained against Crystal Palace just before Christmas. He did not return to the first team until the beginning of April.<\/p>\n
Arteta confirmed surgery is not required this time, but the loss still deprives Arsenal of Saka\u2019s regular creativity and goalscoring threat. The club\u2019s summer signing Noni Madueke, who arrived from Chelsea, has already started on the right wing at Anfield and was described as Arteta\u2019s most lively creative force in that match. Madueke also started the game against Leeds, largely on the opposite flank, and appears to have earned Arteta\u2019s trust.<\/p>\n
Other internal options remain. Ethan Nwaneri often covered for Saka last season and Leandro Trossard has the versatility to fill the role in the short term while the England international recovers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta confirms Bukayo Saka will miss weeks with a hamstring issue; Madueke, Nwaneri options. Today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[826,677,914],"class_list":["post-2528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-ethan-nwaneri","tag-hamstring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528","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=2528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}