Arsenal Confirm Danny Welbeck Will Miss 9 Months After Knee Surgery

​Arsenal have confirmed that Danny Welbeck has undergone surgery on a knee injury sustained in the weekend's game against Manchester City, suggesting that the recovery will likely keep him out for the next nine months - at least until February 2017! Sad.

Early reports had claimed that the England forward was expected to miss somewhere between three and five months of action, but a ​statement on the club's website revealed that the injury was worse than had been suspected.

The timing of the injury could scarcely have been worse for Welbeck, just a few months after coming back from a 10-month knee injury-related layoff. He worked hard in that time to put himself well in contention for Roy Hodgson's England squad - announced next week - but his latest injury has put dampened that hope.

Wenger had said after the match on Sunday: "Danny Welbeck has a knee problem. I hope it is not too bad. We need to wait for a scan, I hope that it is not bad one and a meniscus. Danny is a strong boy, he is not a guy who moves out quickly. We tried to keep him on the pitch and straight away he tried to move on and he said it was impossible.

"At half time, I looked at him and he was very down so he must have pain. Lets hope we have good news tomorrow from the scan. When I say good, that means he will not be out of the Euros. The bad news would be if he is out of the Euros, but I don’t know. I’m an optimist. I don’t know if it is a lateral meniscus. Lets wait until we get the real diagnosis."