Arsenal’s 19-year-old winger Gabriel Martinelli has likely been ruled out of action for the rest of the Premier League season.
Just as when the Gunners fans received the good news about Bernd Leno returning back to training in six weeks time, they have been hit with another injury hindrance, as Gabriel Martinelli has picked up a cartilage injury in training on Sunday.
Arsenal’s injury bulletin before their game vs Southampton read: “Gabriel Martinelli – Left knee. Sustained cartilage injury during training on Sunday. Further assessments and tests to take place in forthcoming days.”
And speaking about the injury, the Arsenal manager revealed that the Brazilian youngster could be out for months.
“We had some really bad news against yesterday [Monday]. In training in the last action he got hit by another player,” Arteta told reporters on Tuesday.
“He’s damaged his knee, the doctors are assessing the extent of the injury but it’s not looking good at all.
“How bad? We don’t know, but he’s looking at months.”
This is a huge setback for Mikel Arteta who is already dealing with a long line of injury absentees and now Martinelli has been added to that list as well.
The injury means Arsenal have one less option upfront when they take on Southampton on Thursday meaning two of the three forwards will have to pump it out for the whole 90 minutes.
And as far as the long-term effect is concerned if Gabriel Martinelli is ruled out for a really long time then Arsenal might just have to go out and sign a new forward during the summer.
