Stop, take a deep breath and calm down. It’s not Mesut Ozil. It’s not Wilshere, Ramsey or Cazorla. However, after such a good showing at the pre-season tour of Asia I have to say that am slightly disappointed that Gedion Zelalem’s first-team debut will have to be pushed back due to a mystery injury.
Zelalem confirmed via Twitter that he will be out for the next 6-8 weeks with an injury. There is no suggestion as to what this injury is or how it occurred, but I believe that he suffered the injury while away on international duty with one of Germany’s youth teams. He was probably set to make his first-team debut against West Brom in the Capital One Cup (on September 25th), so this is a big blow for him, but I am hoping that he will come back stronger and rearing to go before Christmas. If only we had a new £42.5m midfielder we could use in the meantime…
When he eventually does make an appearance later this season, Zelalem (who is 16 years and 9 months old) would still not quite be the youngest player to play competitively for the club. That accolade still belongs to Cesc Fàbregas, who was 16 years, 177 days when he played against Rotherham United on October 28th 2003. However, a clear testament to Gedion’s ability is that he was recently named in Arsenal’s Champions League squad for this season. Because he has only spent a limited time at the club, he was not eligible for the under-21 list and had to be included in the senior squad list to be able to participate.