Madueke has joined the growing list of Gunners players dealing with injuries after being substituted at the interval during Sunday’s 1-1 stalemate with Manchester City. ..Continue Reading
The Three Lions representative, a £52million acquisition from Chelsea during the summer, has stood out early in the campaign for both club and country, excelling on the right flank while Bukayo Saka was sidelined for three games due to a hamstring issue.
Saka returned as a substitute on Sunday, but losing Madueke—signed to strengthen Mikel Arteta’s attacking options—is a significant setback considering his recent performances.
Encouraging updates emerged this week, indicating the 23-year-old will be unavailable for six to eight weeks, having avoided an anterior cruciate ligament injury—which could have ruled him out for the entire season.
Clarifying the specifics of Madueke’s condition, Stephen Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs, a company focused on injury management and performance tracking, described it as a medical ligament issue and supported the estimated recovery period.
‘Generally if it is something that short-term it is usually one of two things,’ Smith told Metro. ‘It is either a ligamentous injury where it is not an ACL but could be a medial ligament or a LCL (lateral cruciate ligament) or it could be a cartilage issue.
‘They were suggesting they were wating for some swelling to subside so in that situation it’s more likely to be a MCL with some fibre disruption, or a small tear in his medial ligament with some swelling. Now they will manage that and begin to put him through his paces in rehab rather than anything that requires surgery.
‘In a scenario like that, having also seen how he moved around since [picking up the injury] I would suggest it is a grade 2 medial ligament strain they are talking about. Six to eight weeks feels around normal for that type of injury.’
Although Arsenal will be comforted by the diagnosis, Madueke is still set to miss a notable stretch of the season and will need to be gradually reintegrated once cleared to play.
‘Six to eight weeks instead of six to eight months is a big relief I’m sure for them right now,’ Smith said.
‘But still, for a team competing for the title, two months is a huge period of time to not have a player of that quality. He’ll have to be eased back in heading into December which is already a very frantic period of the season.’
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