Mikel Arteta reveals freak accident led to Kai Havertz injury | OneFootball

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta revealed that Kai Havertz suffered his season-ending hamstring injury while innocuously blocking a shot during a training session.

Havertz's erratic finishing, lethargy and suitability to the centre-forward role have all come under question this season, but the German's availability has been one of his great strengths.

Arsenal's number 29 has been in the matchday squad for all but two of the club's 38 games across all competitions, racking up a team-high 15 goals before jetting off with the rest of his teammates on a warm-weather training break in Dubai.

It was while performing the seemingly routine act of making a block - something which he has done on 22 separate occasions this season without any ill-fated consequences - that Havertz tore his hamstring, ending his season in early February.

"He was going to stop a shot after a set-piece and stretched the leg and he felt his hamstring," Arteta told his press conference on Friday. "We were having a great camp in Dubai, recharging, training, having some time off and connecting again with nature and a different environment. And then the injury happened in a very unexpected way, certainly."

A straightforward training session led to Kai Havertz's downfall / GLYN KIRK/GettyImages

While it was a blocked shot which ultimately led to the torn fibres in Havertz's leg, Arteta pointed to the overloaded calendar as the root cause for the muscular injuries which have proliferated Arsenal's squad.

Alongside Havertz, Arsenal's Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are both currently sidelined with hamstring issues of their own.

"We've had players who are injured who've played 130 games in the last two seasons so it's an accident waiting to happen when you continue to load, load and load," Arteta fretted.

"The intensity is at a different level and the demands in terms of minutes in this competitive environment is getting higher and higher and it's a consequence of that. The amount of muscle and tendon injuries is higher than ever so there's a relationship. We're very limited and we're training less than ever. There's no time for training."