Arsenal star suffers strange injury for national team as Arteta sweats over NLD fitness

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be hopeful Riccardo Calafiori is available for Italy’s next match after suffering a bizarre injury against France on Friday.

Calafiori joined Arsenal from Bologna for £38million plus add-ons in the summer transfer window.

He is yet to start a competitive match for the Gunners but has come off the bench in their last two Premier League matches.

The Italian international was likely signed to play left-back, with Jurrien Timber starting there against Aston Villa and Brighton after Oleksandr Zinchenko started at home to Wolves on matchday one when Calafiori was an unused substitute.

Calafiori starred at Euro 2024 for Italy and was again called up for this month’s Nations League matches against France and Israel.

Luciano Spalletti’s side went 1-0 down after 13 seconds against France on Friday evening but came from behind to win 3-1 through goals from Federico Dimarco, Davide Frattesi and Giacomo Raspadori.

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Arsenal summer signing Calafiori suffers freak injury v France

Unfortunately for Arsenal, Calafiori did not make it out of the match unscathed.

He suffered a freak injury when Alessandro Bastoni tackled Ousmane Dembele, who went flying through the air and his boot ended up planting into the 22-year-old’s ankle.

Calafiori appeared to be in a great deal of pain and was brought off with 19 minutes remaining.

Arsenal will hope it is not serious, especially with the north London derby against Tottenham coming up after the international break.

Arteta has been boosted by the comments made by Spalletti after the match.

The Italy boss believes Calafiori could be available for Monday’s encounter against Israel.

“We need to assess Riccardo but with our staff, we’ve a good chance to have him back with us for the next game,” Spalletti told reporters.

Arteta will blow a huge sigh of relief after fellow summer signing Mikel Merino was ruled out for two months with a fractured shoulder.

The Spaniard first revealed that the shoulder injury suffered in training would rule Merino out for “a few weeks” but it appears to be more serious.

“It’s very unfortunate. Yesterday (Thursday, August 29) he had a collision and he’s got a shoulder injury and it looks like he’ll be out for a few weeks,” Arteta said.

“It was in his first session with us. It’s really bad luck, we were all excited, everything was looking good. He landed on the floor, Gabriel fell on top of him and it looks like he has a small fracture.

“He was in so much pain, we have to see. He’ll do more tests which will have more conclusive answers.”

Arteta later added: “Well, this is what happens. We have to adapt to that context.

“That’s why we have other players that can fulfil that (role) and (I can) give that opportunity to somebody else.”

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