Tomas Rosicky first, then Thomas Vermaelen and now Jack Wilshere. The Englishman is the third player to suffer a mysterious long-term injury at Arsenal with the youngster set to miss five months of action, this season.

Speaking ahead of the Olympiakos game and asked how will the injury impact the season of the Gunners, manager Arsene Wenger declared that the midfield will miss a key player and there will be more pressure on the other midfielders to deliver adding that the injury should however not be used as an excuse as it’s something every club has to deal with.

The Arsenal boss continued by saying that if Abou Diaby successfully recovers from his injury concerns the situation in midfield will improve as he confirmed that youngsters Francis Coquelin and Emmanuel Frimpong will probably feature more before the return of the Frenchman.

Wilshere, 19, had a successful ankle surgery on Monday as he had the stress fracture of his right ankle repaired. The young talent is expected to return in February with the Gunners hoping to still be in all competitions when he makes his long-awaited comeback.

On the situation in midfield, Wenger said:

[How Jack Wilshere's injury will impact on our season?] I don’t know, what kind of impact it has it makes us a bit shorter in midfield, it puts more pressure on our midfielders to perform game in, game out with less rotation possibility.

Every Club can be tested on that front so that shouldn’t impact our end result of the season and shouldn’t be any excuse at all, he can come back as well and be very strong and help us to finish well the season.

If [Abou] Diaby comes back well and quickly we should, number-wise and quality-wise be alright.

But that depends as well on the injuries we have in the next two-three months, touch wood that we can absorb the number of games we face well.

We have some younger players pushing like [Francis] Coquelin, like [Emmanuel] Frimpong who have played and are doing very well, hopefully we can cope with it.