Mikel Arteta hopes Kai Havertz is ready to return from a long-term knee injury and has predicted the German will bring “a different dimension” to Arsenal’s attack.
Havertz has been sidelined since undergoing knee surgery in August and had been expected back at the start of December before a setback in his rehabilitation. The 26-year-old was Arsenal’s top scorer in the Premier League last season with nine goals despite missing several months with a hamstring issue. He was pictured training this week and Arteta revealed Havertz had been “quite close” to being considered for the Carabao Cup quarter-final win over Crystal Palace on Tuesday.
“I think it will be a matter of days, not weeks,” the manager said. “Let’s see in the next step how he responds to that. But he’s a player that we miss a lot, a player that brings the team into a different dimension. So I’m really happy to have him back very soon.”
Saturday’s meeting with Brighton may come too early for Havertz, who will compete when fit with the £64m signing Viktor Gyökeres and Gabriel Jesus – who started his first game for almost a year against Palace – to lead the line. Gabriel Martinelli is a doubt with a knee injury and Arteta has more problems at the back after revealing Piero Hincapié picked up an unspecified injury in the win over Everton.
Riccardo Calafiori is expected to continue alongside William Saliba in central defence – the eighth pairing Arsenal have used this season – but it is hoped that Gabriel Magalhães could be back in contention in the new year. “He hasn’t trained yet, so he’s still doing his rehab,” Arteta said. “But, hopefully, as quick as possible because we know the situation that we have in the back.”
Injuries undermined Arsenal’s title challenge last season but this time they have at least avoided racking up red cards. As well as being top of the Premier League, Arteta’s side lead the fair play standings with 22 bookings from 17 games and no dismissals – a vast improvement after six sendings-off last season. The first of those came in the home game against Brighton in August 2024 when Declan Rice was shown a controversial second yellow card for kicking the ball away.
“I remember very well, I was very hacked off in the manner that we played with 10 men,” said Arteta. “Hopefully it’s going to be very different next time.”
