FEARS AS WELBECK CARRIED OFF
DANNY’S JINX STRIKES AGAIN Another cruel blow for unlucky Welbeck
Arsenal 0 Sporting Lisbon 0 Bate Borisov 0 Chelsea 1
DANNY WELBECK’S horror ankle injury marred Arsenal sealing a place in the knockout stages of the Europa League.
Welbeck is looking at another long spell on the sidelines after he landed awkwardly in the first half and his ankle buckled under him.
He has been dogged by injury at the Gunners and this is his biggest setback yet since arriving in 2014. His shellshocked team-mates regrouped but had to settle for a point despite laying siege to the Sporting Lisbon goal.
That was good enough to see them through to the last-32 and extended their unbeaten run to 15 games.
Clinching top spot, which the Londoners would have done with a win, will have to wait. They still have two games to wrap that up.
But their main concern would have undoubtedly been Welbeck. He scored the winner against Sporting a fortnight ago and continued to cause them problems at the Emirates last night. Sebastian Coates had to hack the ball off the line after Jeremy Mathieu deflected the ball past his own keeper under pressure from Welbeck, who also headed a Henrikh Mkhitaryan free-kick wide.
But he ended up in agony on the ground after trying to reach Stephan Lichtsteiner’s delivery.
His pain was immediately obvious and the concern on the faces of both sets of players, including his former Manchester United team-mate Nani, indicated the severity of the injury – as did the fact no replays of the incident were being shown on TV.
After five minutes of treatment, including needing oxygen, Welbeck was carried off on a stretcher with his right leg in a brace and taken to hospital.
It was a gut-wrenching end to his night, on the day he was named in the England squad again, and in all likelihood the end to his season too, cruel for a forward who is out of contract in the summer.
Understandably, the incident sucked the life out of the game and the first half fizzled out.
Arsenal gathered themselves at the break and Welbeck’s replacement, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, hit the bar before firing into the side-netting.
Arsenal continued to ask all the questions and Renan Ribeiro sprung across his goal to deny Mkhitaryan before Coates blocked another Aubameyang attempt as the game headed into the final 10 minutes.
Sporting held on despite Mathieu being sent off red for tripping Aubameyang as he raced through on goal. ARSENAL:
Cech 6, Lichtsteiner 7 (Maitland-Niles 74, 6), Holding 6, Sokratis 6, Jenkinson 6 (Kolasinac 60, 6), Mkhitaryan 7, Guendouzi 7, Ramsey 6, Iwobi 7, Smith-Rowe 7, Welbeck 7 (Aubameyang 29, 6).