Injury fears eased for Arsenal's Henrikh Mkhitaryan as Arsene Wenger predicts return before end of season

Arsene Wenger is hopeful of Henrikh Mkhitaryan featuring for Arsenal again this season despite the midfielder suffering ligament damage in Thursday's 4-1 win over CSKA Moscow.

Initial fears had Mkhitaryan out for the remainder of the term after limping out of the Europa League quarter-final first leg on the hour mark, with scans revealing ligament damage to his knee.

However Wenger, who had expressed concern that the Armenian could be sidelined for “several weeks”, now expects Mkhitaryan to only miss Arsenal’s next three games.

“Mkhitaryan has medial knee ligament damage,” Wenger told Standard Sport.

“He will not be available for Thursday, Newcastle away, or West Ham the week after. He will miss these games but could still play at the end of the season.”

Wenger is not short of choice when it comes to options to replace Mkhitaryan for Thursday’s second leg in Moscow.

Both Alex Iwobi and Danny Welbeck excelled in a 3-2 win over Southampton, the former providing two assists and the latter two goals and an assist.

via Evening Standard

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Zidane: “We will not give Barcelona a guard of honour”

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane revealed that his team will not give Barcelona a traditional guard of honour if the two teams meet right after Barcelona become La Liga Champions. “We will not give a guard of honour, this is my decision,” said Zidane when asked about the matter. “Barcelona didn’t follow the tradition when we won the Club World Cup. This is my decision,” he added. Zidane is clearly stating that this is not something decided by the club in order to protect Real Madrid from potential criticism. Barcelona gave Real Madrid a guard of honour back in 2008 but they said that they would not do the same thing this past winter when Madrid conquered the Club World Cup. Nobody knows whether Los Blancos will finally face Barcelona under the circumstances which could make Madrid give said guard of honour, but it’s now clear that Zidane and his men will not hear anything about it.

Neuer back to training

Luka Modric, His Mentor and the Perjury Case That Has Divided Croatia

This is the story of two men. One of them is Luka Modric. His name is known all over the world as Real Madrid 's midfield lynchpin, orchestrator of the side that has won three of the last four UEFA Champions League titles and is gunning to retain its crown this season. The other man is a mentor to him. His name is Zdravko Mamic, the most powerful man in Croatian football. Part of the story involves a transfer between Modric's former teams—Dinamo Zagreb, the most successful club in Croatian history, and Tottenham Hotspur , one of England's grandest outfits—and a court case that has captivated Croatia. The transfer, for a fee reported by Marca to be €21 million, happened in 2008, four years before Modric was bought by Real Madrid. The transfer saga is a sticking point in a legal case brought against Mamic, a former director of Dinamo Zagreb and ex-vice president of the Croatian Football Federation. Mamic was arrested in July 2015. He is accused of corruption a...

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