Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Arsenal right-back Ben White is facing “months” on the sidelines after suffering a knee injury.
The 27-year-old has been dealing with different issues all season and has missed games against PSG, Leicester, Southampton and Bolton. After struggling through until the November international break though, the decision was taken for him to undergo surgery in order to finally address the ongoing problems.
“Ben is gonna be out for months unfortunately,” the Spaniard confirmed in his pre-match press conference. “It’s been different kinds of struggles. It’s never been the same thing. We had to make a decision. It’s not been improving in the last few weeks unfortunately.
“We know that Ben is going to push every boundary but it got to a point a where we have to protect the player and we decided to do the surgery. He agreed with that and unfortunately that’s going to keep him out for a few months.”
The news leaves Arteta struggling for depth at right-back, with Takehiro Tomiyasu dealing with an ongoing knee injury of his own. The Japan international is set to travel away from north London in order to continue his rehab, but Arteta was unable to provide a timescale on when he might be back.
