New Arsenal signing Merino out for up to six weeks after suffering shoulder injury

Spanish midfielder only signed for the Gunners on Wednesday, but manager Mike Arteta says he probably suffered fracture in training

BAD LUCK: Mikel Merino

ARSENAL have suffered a serious stroke of ill-fortune with new midfield signing Mikel Merino suffering a shoulder injury in his first training session which will rule him out of contention for at least a month to six weeks.

Manager Mikel Arteta confirmed Friday that the Spanish linchpin 'landed' on his shoulder, and another player fell on top of him. "It's probably a fracture," sighed Arteta, "but this is football."

Merino's transfer was only confirmed on Wednesday, and he was in contention to go straight into the squad for Saturday's lunch time kick off at home to second-placed Brighton. However an innocuous collision with centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes at Arsenal’s training base has put paid to that.

“He landed on the floor and Gabi landed on top of him, it's a fracture probably”, Arteta said.

“It was very unfortunate,” said Arsenal manager. "[It was his] first session. He was really excited and everything was looking really good. He landed on the floor and Gabi landed on top of him and it looks like he has a small fracture probably.” 

Asked how long Merino will be out for, Arteta replied: “We have to see. He was in so much pain. We’ll have to do some more tests on that and then we’ll have more conclusive answers.”