Arsene Wenger’s Injury her Player

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger gave his usual injury update ahead of tomorrow’s game against West Ham United, at the Emirates.

Speaking on Thursday afternoon to Arsenal TV Online, the Frenchman started by confirming that left-back Kieran Gibbs will be out of action for weeks after suffering a knee injury sustained in the easy Carling Cup win against Newcastle on Wednesday.

According to the Frenchman, the youngster will undergo further tests this morning with the Gunners hoping to have the 21-year old back for the busy Christmas period.

Wenger also gave an update on the fitness level of long-term absentees Robin van Persie, Thomas Vermaelen and Aaron Ramsey. The striker and Welshman are expected to be back to full training very soon but a return date for the Belgian is yet to be set.

Goalkeeper Manuel Almunia and midfielder Abou Diaby will also not be involved against the Hammers as they are respectively recovering from an elbow and ankle injury.

On Thursday, Wenger said:

We lost Kieran Gibbs last night. That is the bad news.

It is a medial knee ligament strain. It needs to be checked on the scan tomorrow but it will be a few weeks.

We have nobody else back from Manchester City. Van Persie and Vermaelen are still out. Ramsey and Almunia are not ready. So it should be a similar squad to the one that played at Man City.

But Van Persie and Ramsey are very close to coming back to full training now. They should be back in the group at the end of next week.

Of course we should not set the same [recovery] time to Ramsey as Van Persie. Aaron will need a longer period to be completely match-fit for the first team. But Van Persie is not far away now.

Manuel Almunia is maybe one to two weeks away. With Vermaelen, it is difficult to set a fixed time because his Achilles improves slowly.