Laurent Koscielny will miss the World Cup and probably the rest of this year - but he should make a full recovery from his Achilles injury.
Our vice-captain is having surgery after collapsing in agony during the first half of our Europa League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid.
It’s a dreadful blow for the France defender, even if Arsene Wenger believes his long-standing Achilles issues will be fixed by the surgery.
“Koscielny is of course devastated because of course he has surgery,” said the boss. “That means he will be out for six months. You will not see him before the end of December, or maybe the beginning of December at best. It’s certainly the final year he would play for the national team, but you never know. He now misses the World Cup as well.
“But the recovery will be full because the advantage of the surgery is that it heals the inflammation, which people don't do usually because the fact you move always... sometimes people have surgery when they don't need it and they think, 'Oh, it has healed' and it has healed basically because they didn't move and it healed the cause of the inflammation. On that front, it is no problem [for Koscielny], he will cure.
“We always try to be positive. Overall, you can only try to support people when they suffer because of course they suffer from a situation like that.
“What is unusual in his case is that he had a tendon issue for a long time and usually they don’t rupture. That is a bit surprising in this case, where people with inflamed tendons don’t rupture, but in his case it went. I don’t know why.”
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