Arsenal news: Jurrien Timber suffered a knee injury in the Gunners 2-1 Premier League victory against Nottingham Forest
The incident occurred right before half time but Timber returned back out for the second half only to be taken off five minutes after the break and replaced by Takehiro Tomiyasu. Following the conclusion of the game, Arteta delivered his first words on the injury, with the early prognosis not looking good.
"I said on air, I hope it’s his calf and not his knee," Arteta explained on TNT Sport. "But the outside of his right knee landed awkwardly in the initial challenge in the first half. He’ll go for a scan over the weekend and fans will keep their fingers crossed that it’s not too bad."
The 23-year-old has now broken his silence following the injury scare with a message on Twitter. He wrote: "A win to begin, *tick emoji*".
There is no clear mention of the injury, however the tweet also includes the words 'back soon' in emoji format which hints that the issue may not be a serious one. Arteta will certainly be hoping that is the case as Oleksandr Zinchenko is also recovering from an injury.
Asked if leaving him out was tactical, Arteta said: "Yeah, we expected a game that actually happened and we needed somebody else in midfield to do what we did best, to have more fluidity and occupy certain spaces in relation to how they’re defending. It worked really well."