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Arsenal Handed Major Injury Boost

By mac14 on June 25, 2014

Arsenal have been handed a major injury boost with reports claiming that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be fully fit to take part in pre-season training.

The Ox suffered a knee ligament injury during England’s World Cup warm up match with Ecuador three weeks ago but was named in Roy Hodgson’s 23-man squad as it was hoped he’d be back in time to take part in the final group game against Costa Rica at the latest.

The 20-year-old initially made good progress and looked to be on course to be in the squad to face the Costa Ricans on Tuesday after returning to light training.

However, unfortunately The Ox suffered a set back in training on Sunday when he jarred his knee which subsequently saw him miss England’s final group game. Hodgson confirmed the injury on Monday morning, saying:

“He took part in training and we thought he was 100 per cent OK, but he took a ball… he intercepted a pass with the wrong part of his foot and it twisted his knee.

“It’s been a great shame for him, because we really thought he could have made an impact for us here and it’s been disappointing. He’s worked hard to get back to fitness so this is a shame for him. On the whole, we’ve been fortunate with injuries but he’s been the unlucky one.”

It was feared the midfielder had done further damage to the ligament, but thankfully the Mirror appear to have allayed those fears as they are reporting today that England’s medical team have been in touch with Arsenal to make it clear the latest injury is a minor one and Chamberlain will be fine to start pre-season training next month.

This is excellent news as it would have been a huge blow if The Ox had suffered any serious damage. He missed a large part of last season through injury and this is going to be a huge year for him, so hopefully he can get back up to speed quickly and hit the ground running next season.