Floored: Arsenal players show their concern as
injured Fabregas goes down
Cesc Fabregas faces a race against time to be fit for
Spain’s World Cup campaign after being ruled out for the rest of
the Premier League season with a cracked right fibula.
Arsenal confirmed
on Thursday that Fabregas will be out for ‘at least six weeks’
after being caught with a clumsy challenge by Carles Puyol which
resulted in a penalty and a red card for the Barcelona skipper.
Fabregas picked himself up to convert the spot-kick which earned
Arsenal a 2-2 draw but then collapsed in obvious pain clutching his
right leg below the knee.
The news on Fabregas is a devastating blow to Arsenal manager
Arsene Wenger, who has now lost his skipper for the Barclays
Premier League title run-in after gambling on his fitness in the
Champions League.
Wenger rated Fabregas’s chance of facing his former club at only
40 per cent on the eve of the Champions League quarter-final and
left the final decision on whether to play him until the pre-match
warm-up.
Fabregas was a doubt for the Barca game after being caught in
the same area of his right leg by a challenge from Birmingham’s Craig
Gardner in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw last weekend.
He went on to complete the game at St Andrew’s despite clearly
being left in pain by the injury. A scan on Monday resulted in a
diagnosis by Arsenal’s medical staff that Fabregas had suffered
severe bruising.
But Wenger will doubtless now be keen to learn whether
Fabregas’s leg-break could actually have been caused by Gardner’s
challenge and aggravated by the coming together with Puyol after an
X-ray confirmed the extent of the damage yesterday.
No mistake: Fabregas held his nerve to bullet home
his penalty
Fabregas admitted after Wednesday’s thrilling encounter
with Barcelona that he knew he ‘was not 100 per cent’, adding: ‘I
knew in my mind there was something there.But until the penalty I
was feeling quite good. It was a gamble worth taking.’
However, that gamble means he is now sweating over whether he
will be fit to take part in Spain’s bid to add the World Cup to
their European Championship crown.
Vicente del Bosque’s team play their final friendly against
Poland on June 8 before taking on Switzerland in Durban in their
opening group game on June 16.
On the mend: Van Persie
Wenger’s primary concern will be what effect Fabregas’s
injury, along with those suffered by Andrey Arshavin and William
Gallas, has on the remainder of Arsenal’s campaign.
Arshavin has been ruled out for three weeks after picking up a
calf strain that forced him off against Barcelona after 27 minutes.
His mother Tatyana claimed yesterday that her son would miss the
rest of the season.
Gallas suffered a recurrence of his own calf problem which had
sidelined him for seven weeks prior to Wednesday night’s game and,
like Arshavin, will be out for a further three weeks.
Wenger is also sweating on the fitness of Gael Clichy and
Denilson for tomorrow’s visit of Wolves.
‘We are like an army who have come back from a big battle,’ he
said. ‘We have some bruises but we need to recover and then go to
the next battle. Who will be available for the next one? I have to
wait.’
