Mohamed Elneny will miss Arsenal's Premier League match with Aston Villa due to a hamstring injury, football.london understands. Despite completing the 2-1 win over Fulham on Saturday and being videoed celebrating with teammates at full-time, a problem has since been detected.
Scans are expected to take place to understand the extent of the problem, although The Athletic claim that the problem is ‘significant’. Thomas Partey is out with what is understood to be a minor thigh issue, although this is not the same problem which has plagued his Arsenal career to date.
The wide area looked to be the main focus for the Gunners as the window came to a close. Pedro Neto looked to be the primary candidate, although the Wolves asking price has made any move difficult.
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Other names have been mentioned but the latest on Elneny could have a potentially dramatic effect on where technical director Edu’s efforts are focused in the closing days of the transfer window. The timing may be somewhat of a blessing, had the Egyptian suffered the problem the following weekend, Arsenal would have had no opportunity to respond. At least now they can weigh up their options.
Mikel Arteta has gone on record to say the level of player he exclusively wants through the door. “[It] has to be the right person and has to be the right player,” Arteta said. “We only want to bring top quality through that door. If not it’s not worth it.”
The subsequent two summer windows, including this one, have seen investments made in young players. Their futures are being banked on to realise either their value increase for a potential future sale or that the benefit to the first team squad exponentially increases.
So far, Thomas Partey, Gabriel Magalhaes, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus have all found their way into the starting XI on a regular basis in this or last season. Therefore, any signing made to respond to the injury to Elneny would also need to have the characteristics and quality to compete with both Partey and Granit Xhaka in the midfield positions.
Arsenal are thought to be awaiting confirmation on the severity of Elneny’s injury before making a decision on transfers. However, fans will be expectant of a reaction should the experienced midfielder be out for some time.
The problem for Arsenal is finding a profile of a player with less than three days remaining. Of course, the discovery of Elneny’s injury will have happened well ahead of the news becoming public, meaning Edu has hopefully already begun work to address the problem.
The disadvantage for Arsenal is clubs will not only be demanding an increased fee to lose a quality player so close to the end of the window, but knowing the Gunners’ predicament, it leaves Edu in a fragile negotiating position.
Reports of Financial Fair Play monitoring by UEFA have surfaced in the past week and evidence of the summer suggests there’s been a reluctance to overpay for targets, however, this incident may give Arsenal little choice.
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