Bukayo Saka Injury Leaves Arsenal Flanks Exposed
Bukayo Saka left the Allianz Arena on Wednesday night limping, no crutches, but with a cloud hanging over Arsenal’s season.
The winger lasted only a few minutes of the 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich before his quad gave way. No crunching tackle. No heavy collision. He simply played a pass out wide, went down under minimal pressure and immediately signalled that he could not continue. For Mikel Arteta, it was the kind of innocuous moment that sets off alarm bells.
After the game, the Arsenal manager did not bother to sugar-coat it. The problem, he admitted, “doesn’t look good at all”.
Scans, specialists and an anxious wait
By Thursday, Saka had been sent for scans. On Friday, Arteta revealed the first results had not provided the clarity anyone wanted.
"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 gave a definitive assessment."
Saka was seen leaving the Allianz on Wednesday night limping, but walking unaided. No brace, no crutches. It offered a sliver of encouragement, but the volume of fluid and the uncertainty around the damage tell their own story. Arsenal will not know how long he will be out until those further investigations land.
A hole in Arsenal’s attack
What is already clear is the size of the hole his absence creates.
Since the 2020/21 season, Arsenal’s Premier League win rate with Saka in the side stands at 64.2 per cent. Without him, that drops to 53.3 per cent. Strip away the numbers and you see the same thing with the naked eye: end product, ball-carrying, pressing, leadership at just 23. He is their constant on the right, the reference point around which much of their attacking play is built.
Arteta’s options out wide were thin even before this setback. Christos Tzolis remains sidelined, while the club cashed in on both Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard in the summer. The squad has been remodelled, but the flanks now look worryingly light.
That reality will hit hardest over the coming weeks. Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze are expected to shoulder much of the creative burden from wide areas, with Max Dowman likely to see more minutes as Arteta searches for balance without his star winger. None of them replicate Saka’s profile. All of them will be asked to grow up fast.
Defensive boost as Hincapie returns
Not all of the news from London Colney was grim.
Piero Hincapie is back and will be available to face Everton on Saturday after recovering from an ankle injury. The defender has missed the last three matches, having picked up the problem on the Emirates Stadium pitch in a training session held immediately after last month’s win over Leeds.
He returned to outdoor work earlier this week, completed individual drills on Tuesday and came through full training on Friday. Arteta will welcome his versatility and aggression at the back, especially with the schedule tightening.
The timing is useful, but it does not mask the issues further forward.
Tzolis close, Saliba progressing
On the opposite flank, there is at least some movement. The Everton game will arrive too soon for Tzolis as he continues his recovery from the hamstring injury suffered on international duty with Greece earlier this month, but he is understood to be edging towards a return. Arsenal hope he can soon offer another option in the final third.
William Saliba, meanwhile, is making steady progress after the serious back injury he sustained at the World Cup, an issue that has kept him out for the entire campaign so far. He is still not in contention to feature, yet his rehabilitation is finally moving in the right direction.
So Arsenal go into the weekend with a defender back, a winger nearly back, and their most reliable wide threat stuck in the unknown, somewhere between best-case and worst-case scan results.
The numbers say they are a different team without Saka. The pitch usually proves it. How long they have to live with that reality may shape what this season ultimately becomes.
