Arteta discusses Arsenal transfer ‘regrets’ following Havertz injury | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta admits that Arsenal “can have regrets” over not signing a striker in the January transfer window after Kai Havertz suffered a season-ending injury.

The Gunners made efforts to bring in a forward before the deadline, but saw their bid for Ollie Watkins rebuffed by Aston Villa.

Havertz joined Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli on the treatment table after injuring his hamstring during a training camp in Dubai, leaving Arsenal light on attacking options.

Arteta discusses Arsenal transfer ‘regrets’ following Havertz injury

“We always put in that situation that we are an injury or two away from a very risky situation,” Arteta said ahead of Saturday’s trip to Leicester City in the Premier League.

“When you try your best and you think you’ve done everything you are capable of and you have done your homework and try that and you don’t achieve it, you can have regrets.

“But at least you know you’ve done it.”

Asked if Arsenal could look to the free agent market for a solution, he responded: “We will explore every possible situation and make a decision from there.”

Arteta said he had a “really bad feeling” after Havertz sustained the injury while stretching his leg to stop a shot from a set-piece.

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“Big pain in the tummy, that’s the first feeling,” he said. “First of all, when you see a player in pain… it’s a really bad feeling. Then you feel like ‘Not again!’. Then you realise you have no time to do that.

“Support the player, start to look forward and start to look at alternatives on how the team is going to be able to continue to perform. And convince yourself about that because the player needs to feel that belief as well.

“You can you cases, situations we’ve been in in the past. If we’ve done it before, we can do it again.”

Arteta added that some injuries are accidents waiting to happen given the workload foisted on his Arsenal players by the football calendar.

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“You cannot prove it, so the evidence we can provide is very limited in many aspects and every case is very different,” the Basque native explained.

“Some of them we know are based on load and minutes, it’s inevitable.

“We have players that have been injured that have played 130 games in the last two seasons.

“At the end, it’s an accident waiting to happen if you continue to load and load and load.

“Is it this season? Is it the accumulation of that? Is it the stress of that? Is it luck, preparation, methodology?

“There are a lot of factors and it’s very difficult to point out one thing, but the schedule that is planned is super demanding and, for certain players, especially explosive players, it becomes a real issue.”

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