Arteta says how close Elneny is to Arsenal return after ‘rehab process’

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has given an update on the fitness of Mohamed Elneny.

Mohamed Elneny has not played for Arsenal since January as he has been sidelined since then with a significant knee injury.

However, he now looks to be close to being able to make a return to first team action. Though, how much game time the 31-year-old will be given by Mikel Arteta, even when fully fit, remains to be seen.

Elneny has been with the north London club since January 2016, when Arsenal paid £5 million to prise him away from Swiss outfit Basel.

The midfielder has since made 155 appearances for the club in all competitions. However, he has never been a regular starter, and is now lower down in the pecking order than ever with Thomas Partey, Jorginho, and £105 million club-record signing Declan Rice all also on the books.

The 93-cap Egypt international does bring plenty of useful experience to the dressing room, though. In fact, Elneny is the only player in the current Arsenal squad to have represented the Gunners in the Champions League before.

Elneny can still be useful for Arteta

Arteta discussed Elneny’s history in the competition, and his ongoing recovery, ahead of Arsenal’s upcoming Champions League clash with PSV Eindhoven. As quoted by the club’s official website, he said, “he’s still young though! He’s in a good place, obviously it’s been a while and it’s been a very significant injury but I think he’s in the latter stages of that rehab process. He’s been training for almost two weeks with the team and he is in a good place. It’s always great to have him around.”

Elneny is certainly a positive influence in the Arsenal dressing room, and even though he won’t get a great deal of game time this season, the £55,000-a-week ace does have the quality to make an impact if called upon. 

It is a major positive for Arsenal that they have such strength in depth available to them in the middle of the park. Arteta has enough options to the choose from to allow him to effectively manage players’ energy levels throughout the campaign.