David Ornstein has just reported that Kai Havertz will miss the rest of the season after picking up a hamstring strain during the trip to Dubai.
In an update via Threads, he said:
Kai Havertz set to miss rest of season through injury. Arsenal forward suffered torn hamstring during training at #AFC camp in Dubai. Unclear if 25yo Germany international will require surgery but focus is getting fit for 2025-26 campaign.
This is obviously a huge blow for Arsenal and for Mikel Arteta. Having already lost Gabriel Jesus to an ACL injury in January, it leaves the club without a recognised centre-forward for the rest of the campaign, and will require some serious thinking on the part of the manager when it comes to rejigging his team.
It also makes what is left of this season, both domestically and in Europe, even more challenging.
A season that has already been an injury nightmare, has just got worse. And you can’t help but worry about what else is still to come.
Regrets over the January transfer window, already through the roof, will now reach fever pitch after the club’s decision to be inactive has thoroughly come back to haunt us.
Get well soon, Kai.
I don’t even want to see the fallout from this. Our most toxic fans about to have a field day. Can we keep it a lil level headed guys?
Oh dear, I guess the academy folks must step up, take the chance opening up for them
https://www.arsenal.com/academy/players 12 forwards to pick from in the academy! no problem.
And not one of them any good
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Just pick the one whose parents are happy to allow him to stay up late eh ?
Not many are out and out strikers tho. Many are converted wingers or AMs
I am going to buy a gun
–nersaurus stuffed toy so I can cuddle it for comfort.
You got it wrong, my friend. We need someone to ‘shoot’ at goal with the foot.
Yeah, we will never hear the end of it. I know we were all very disappointed we could not get any business done as we looked in dire need. I could understand though, unlike many, that it looked like they could not get their targets especially this January window, and opted to work with what we have with a view to getting the specific targets that will make us much better, as opposed to stop gaps or players that don’t quite fit our game plan. Obviously, with our luck getting worse, they got it very wrong. they will be the… Read more »
The problem was the last summer window and Aryetas insistence that we did not need a forward
I think the problem isnt that the club or Arteta are aversed to buying a forward its that we seem to be looking for the PERFECT forward when GOOD would have been very helpful. Theres always a degree of risk with that particular position but i feel this generations Giroud or Eduardo whoever that is at that sort of level, would have been a good addtion. Obviously that would have had to be at a price that wouldnt prevent us from adding a winger or another forward down the line but to do nothing was unnacceptable.
So, Giroud – Ligue One champion and top scorer, UCL and EL winner, mutilple FA Cups winner, Serie A winner, World Cup winner, all-time goalscorer of France, and a lot more that I miss here, was GOOD, not GREAT?
Talking about those players at the time of purchase. I thought that was clear when I included Eduardo alongside his name.
There must have been some players of that profile that could have done a job, but the mind goes around in cicles on this transfer issue.
Randall Kolo-Muani went on loan to Juventus. He could play either up front or wide right, so it’s very likely he would’ve started most games for us if he had joined. And it wouldn’t have taken a massive outlay that would prevent the club from buying in the summer.
Players along those lines would have been ideal as that wouldn’t have impacted by us already having premier league loans.
Sure, except for a single detail. He wanted to go to Juventus.
I was about to say, he’s a generational talent
Giroud wasn’t a prolific goal scorer, his record speaks for itself.
Move forward (without a forward)
Well I’m glad that you’re ok with it. Really…
The January window thing is moot. The problems are systematic. We all knew Saka would eventually get hurt by the amount of load on his body, same problem with Havertz recently. If player’s minutes were managed better ESR and Viera might of been content with their playtime and we stayed and we would have more players to choose from. This is a complete failure from the manager, idk how you could possibly see it any other way when you actually break it down over the last few seasons and what we added, and what we demanded from our players on… Read more »
I agree with everything you said. Have thought it myself.
Except, these risks were taken for the sake of an all out title push. So ought we have shaved 1 or 2% off *that* challenge, in order to protect and prepare for *this* season?
“They will be the first to admit” that they got it wrong? Really? To whom will they admit this? The supporters? ROTFLMAO. Not literally of course, because this is some pretty fucking tragic shit right here.
The only positive is that the rest of the season is stress-free. We can relax and enjoy (and pray!).
It wont be stress free, as im sure we dont want players with similar minutes in their legs to break down too, regardless of if our lofty hopes have been tempered.
Well, that’the “pray part” not to get worse an already terrible situation!
Haha, my bad, many prayers needed
At least FatGooner will cheer us all up.
I’m not happy, I’m just really angry and disappointed. Please have a look at my post below.
You don’t fucking help do you by saying that – what do you expect people to say? A brainless incendiary comment looking for thumbs up from equally brainless people on here – let’s al be happy that four of our five first team attackers are long term injured. Unbelievable.
Nothing will really ‘help’. Whats done is done, we didnt buy the players we needed and thats led to being extremely short, with non-existent depth when injuries have occured. You have to admit though, that the brainless this and brainless that isnt helpful, you might even say that thats “incendiary”. Why insult strangers?
How is criticising our recruitment policy toxic? This is the result of 3/4 transfer windows of not signing a forward; Havertz was signed as a midfielder. With the international games and increased workload for the players this outcome was obvious to anyone with half a brain. The club decided to write this season off and go for main targets in the summer, which still remains to be seen. Now there’s pressure on saka and martinelli to come back quickly. Let’s hope they have ample time to recover so they don’t suffer recurring injuries that impact their career. They better hope… Read more »
I think there’s a problem with our medical, and physio team, or our training methods. We are having too many muscle injuries it’s worrying.
Well shit
Calafiori and Benny Blanco up front then?
Genuinely, what are we going to do? Looking at the free agent list there’s nothing appealing Ben Yedder has legal issues and Diego Costa is an old ball sack. Firmino wouldn’t come and play with us challenging Liverpool. Our youngsters look undercooked. We clearly can’t play Sterling Leo and Ethan every game. Tierney and Merino as LW and ST depth? My god im generally optimistic enough but this season is so cooked. This will turn into Man City form and not the good kind. I’m actually flabbergasted.
Gabriel.
Merino center forward, and all our left backs on the pitch together.
4…………..+3
2
1
One day, they will read about this formation in the history books
Just throw in whoever you can from the academy. The strain on a select few players has been the issue so why not just share the load and be realistic about the greatly reduced chances of acheiving something substantial this year. Dont run the remaining players into the ground and risk similar long term injuries.
Fuck!!
WTF
Where’s giroud ? Loan deal incoming
Can we do loan deals now? Or sign free agents ?
Loan deals no. Not sure about free agents.
I know this is very unlucky. And people will say you couldn’t predict this. However if we did have another forward maybe we could have rested Martinelli and Kai more and avoided overloading there hamstrings to the point that they have broken down? I am sorry but a club that seriously wants to win trophies would have never chosen to take this gamble and sign no one. We will always be 1-2 short if we have this mentality. City, Madrid, Liverpool even Chelsea would have signed a forward, hate to say their name but they are the clubs that have… Read more »
City and Chavs did indeed buy good forwards
Rest him in a training camp in Dubai?
Real Madrid is awfully short on defenders, though..
It’s not that unlucky precisely because it was entirely predictable.
Arteta, who I love and very rarely criticise, came out last week and said we can manage Robot Kai. You were wrong. You were also wrong about Saka of whom you said something similar when questioned about the amount of games being played.
I’m so disappointed in the club about this whole affair. They have to be better moving forward.
This season is the season from hell. Hopefully we can still make top four.
and it may be Top 5 is OK for CL qualification. Wind back on the league and see if we can make an improbable assault on the CL?
Well thats quite shite. Is there some free agent we can draft in, is there any more youngsters we can give a go too? A season that promised so much but could end up being a complete disaster.
2nd in the League and straight into CL knockout phase, yet our season is pretty much done. Some very poor recruitment planning over the last couple of windows.. Need a massive summer, but feels very much like an opportunity missed to push on and actually gain silverware this year.
Serious question! Can we still sign playes that are on a free contract? If not can we call anyone back from loans? Otherwise our academy strikers have to step up!
When it rains it pours. Just our luck when Citeh decide to have a nosedive we have so many injuries. Let’s hope someone can step up.
Yes but they are free for a reason 🙂
The focus should be top 4 now. No significant difference between 2nd and 4th. Let’s be sensible and see the season out. There’s no hiding place for our summer recruitment now. I expect to be finally and truly excited
Don’t be so negative. We still have a strong defence and I genuinely can’t see us finishing lower than we are now.
I wish I had that level of optimism. I’ll be happy if we finish in the CL places this season.
And so Artetas folly comes to its expected conclusion
We dont know the inner workings of this club and how they’ve contibuted to what weve seen in the past 2 windows. If you’re talking about lack of rotation with the players we do have, then fair enough.
Lack of rotation is a huge talking point here..and speaking about the windows, it’s starting to put the whole Edu leaving abruptly thing into perspective.
Edu was fired. Boy do I miss Wenger. He would’ve taken the responsibility of finding someone upon himself and handled negotiations until a deal was done. Kolo Muani would be an Arsenal player as we speak.
I think we are at the stage now where we will have to see creative solutions up front, we can’t play Sterling, Ethan and Leo every game (I’d prefer not playing Sterling at all, but it is what it is). Ethan up top? Merino? Rice?
I wonder if Chido Obi-Martin is feeling a bit of regret right now.
I thought this listening to ArsenalVision the other day and they were talking about internal solutions and how that standout academy striker didnt exist in our current crop. Chido was the elephant in the room….or was. Que sera sera
I did hear that he’s on 30k per week at United so if that’s even partly true I doubt that he has any regrets at all.
That’s now Saka, Jesus and Havertz all out for significant periods in the same season with hamstring tears. We needed quality forward signings in the summer to ease the burden on these players and it seems this is the consequence.
Jesus was an ACL. Martinelli’s out with a hamstring, but sounds like hopefully more of a strain than tear.
My mistake with Jesus, but it’s still a long term injury. Martinelli’s is indeed only a strain which is why I didn’t mention him. With the way things are now he can’t come back quick enough.
Leandro it’s time to run it back
Good work Jason ayto and recruitment team.
Edu in part to be blamed for poor summer recruitment. We had no plans for the ST. The team had already moved past Jesus(both playing style wise and availability wise) and Havertz was never planned to lead the line, he was always stop gap option. So what was the thinking going into new season?
People will talk about the January transfer window but the injury crisis we’re currently in has been a few years in the making. Poor squad management in terms of transfers (lack of quality attacking signings) and in load bearing. I’ve heard people argue that the best players play every minute of every game but I certainly see more rotation at other top clubs than what we’ve seen with Saka, Martinelli, and Havertz over the past few seasons. You do have outliers like Haaland or Salah, who seem to play all the time, but to my eye their bodies are managed… Read more »
Yes – the point here is that it is clear there is a systematic problem – at a strategic level….not just tactical bad luck.
We have had 5 forwards this year (not including Sterling who has not really managed to get involved nor Nwaneri who has broken through late) – Havertz, Trossard, Saka, Jesus, Martinelli. Of those 5, only Trossard has not damaged his hamstring.
When 80% of your forwards damage their hamstrings; and 3 out of 4 of those appear to be full tears……it’s not bad luck; it’s bad management.
I agree generally but the irony is that in the beginning of the season Arteta was rotating everyone a lot more than before. Then the injuries started and we had no depth…
Such a good point and cannot be downplayed. This isn’t just bad luck.
Sal and hal do not defend and are not expected to track back. So, yes, they can manage playing every game.
Sad news, get well soon Kai. However, I’m tired of the media’s focus on our failings in the January window. Yes we could have done something in January but it apparently would have been a subpar move which would hurt us in the longrun. The mistake was made in the summer and actually probably much earlier. What I’m trying to say is this is actually a long-term oversight and it surprises me that fans would be quick to criticise Arteta but nobody ever calls out Edu who seemed to be distracted by his long-term career and not 100% focused on… Read more »
To be fair, when Isak was on the market he had a spotty injury record, was coming off a meh season, and was very expensive. Only Newcastle was really in the running at that price. We bought Jesus instead for a lower fee and in that first three months before the World Cup, I was really happy with that decision. At that time, I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted what has happened to him since.
Sadly, completely predictable. Some of our best players have been worked to death. We need a bigger squad if we are to compete in all competitions and we have to rotate. Three hamstrings in a few months says it all!
I really want to see all our players getting a full summer of rest come June and not play themselves out for international money-makers.
The league was off ever since the referees targeted us with “delaying the restart” reds, but since then dropped it for other teams. I’m not sure one January signing would have been enough to challenge with the amount of injuries now.
At this rate we’re gonna have to stick gunnersaurus up front by the end of the season
I thought they got rid during COVID
Yes, bad luck but also extremely poor planning. This is not how you squad build. So many single points of failure in forward positions.
I feel for Kai. This was inevitable. Shame on Mikel, shame on the board, shame on the management. The squad was crying out for help, and you STILL chose to not buy a single player. Mediocrity drives the club, and we are happy earning the money by being in the UCL. We do not deserve anything more than what we have. No serious sporting club starts the season with such a thin squad and then proceeds to not have reinforcements when more than half of the attack is injured in the first half of the season. I’m so pissed and… Read more »
Arteta and Co. finding out the hard way that three terrible transfer windows in a row (considering we didn’t sign anyone last January either!) will come back to bite you in the arse at some stage.
Two successive winter windows of not signing player is unacceptable. Sure, it’s a difficult window, but other clubs seem to manage.
Such bad management- I hope the risk- benefit financial analysis they undertook last month was worth it…
For their pockets? Still worth it, if people pay to watch this train slowly de-rail.
Spending that amount of time on getting the merino deal over the line is a real head scratcher in hindsight now.
Arteta must have angered the football gods when he recently talked up Havertz as a football cyborg of sorts on stamina and endurance.
Is it bad luck though? How many hamstring injuries have we had this season? This is clearly a load problem and the manager’s failure to rotate, substitute, and manage tactics.
I would say we’ve rotated more this season than any other yet. It’s not just us either, every team has been struggling with injuries this year.
We’ve rotated because of injuries though.
Sorry but no, Arteta has come close (twice!) with a squad which is a work in progress comprised of a mixture of talented youngsters and some leftovers form m/city/chelsea and some unknowns (tomi etc). At which point do the OWNERS OF ARSENAL set down their ambition. Do they want to win the League or not? The Champions League? Yes or no? Are they willing to invest accordingly or do we always have to wait for wenger/arteta to pull rabbits out their arses and perfrom miracles?? This isnot the Bundesliga where if Bayern has a bad season maybe a Leverkusen can… Read more »
Let’s get top 4, see how far we can get in Europe and then forget about this sh*tshow of a season as soon as possible. Depressing stuff.
We still have a strong defence so the least we should finish is still second. We are still better than the teams immediately below us.
Makes sense to me
The fans from this point forward need to bring our expectations down to earth and not take our frustrations out on the team or the manager.
We lost the Premier League & Champions League at the board room level.
The players don’t decide who we sign, and Arteta constantly spoke about wanting a striker, the scouting department and owners let him down.
Down to earth? Expectations are deep underground next to your friends’ fossils, Gunnerzaurus.
Where’s that dog with everything on fire meme
Thanks for punting on this season, Jayson Ayto and the board. This is all on you. Get fucked.
Have let Arteta and the players down big time. Oh and the fans too. But I guess we can buy the latest new training too or shower jacket
Thank god we’ve got a 7 point buffer int he champions league places and Leicester next.
Titi?
Always
At this rate it will be scarcely surprising if we have half a team to field by the back end of the season. This team has been punching way above squad capacity for three seasons now and it’s starting to show. The level we play at requires at least two fully functional first teams plus the reserves. It’s credit to their grittiness that they’ve achieved so much so far with so much less. Hopefully the powers that be recognize and address it before more chicken come home to roost and we inevitably start dropping back down the league table. If… Read more »
Arteta and the rest of the team needs to get creative now. We might need a slightly different setup now, seeing as we don’t have anyone who can do exactly what Havertz does.
Perhaps Butler-Oyedeji from the academy, Merino as a Fellaini 2.0 or the wild-card option of Zinchenko who seems to be in surplus at the moment. He is definitely technically gifted and actually a decent header. Could he be “re-schooled”?
Pretty depressed about Saka, Jesus, Martinelli and now Havertz all out, with a gap to make up in the league and UCL last 16 fast approaching. Feels like season over. But then I thought about Tottenham. And I laughed quite a lot.
Just give Calafiori every Vieri tape there is to watch and problem solved.
Imagine if we still won the league or champs after this. Would match up with the invincibles in terms of achievement. Im still full of hope, this team is something special.
Is there no-one in our youth U21 team who can step up? Doesn’t need to be world class yet but still some body in the forward areas. The season is gone, why not try some youth players. If nothing, it will help us to be able to field some youth players which may enhance our reputation tonother brighter prospects. And who knows maybe we unearth a player there somewhere
I’m ready but I expect at least arsenal to cover the cost of my travel to and from the stadium.
What exactly is Arteta training them to do?!
Beyond ridiculous now. Wake me up when this season is over!
Move the opponents’ goal more towards us and a bit to the left, and problem soft. Big brain out of the box… that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Seriously though, they broke Havertz in fucking Dubai which was supposed to be about recharging. Mind boggling.
Serves us right for being tight fisted last month!
Let’s show the world why we are called ‘set piece fc’… with benny blanco returning, set piece shithousery will be back to its best. Just put all the tall guys on the pitch and play for set pieces….anyone expecting us to play proper football must exit earth right now.
Honestly, letting Viera leave on loan without a replacement was a big blunder. It already cost us when odegard was injured and now as well.
I like this, let’s get creative. Take time wasting to a new level, sneakily though. Play keep ball for as long as we can. Play for set pieces at every opportunity. Try out Merino up front as a target man or something. As dire as this is I’m excited to see how we manage. Every victory will be that much sweeter, we’ll be underdogs odds wise in many of our games now I suspect. Could help create an underdog mentality which we seem to thrive with.