Jack Wilshere ruled out for three weeks in new injury blow

Jack Wilshere is out of Arsenal’s Champions League clash with Bayern Munich, and England’s World Cup qualifying double-header next week.

The midfielder, who missed 17 months with an ankle injury before returning at the start of this season, has now suffered another knock and has been ruled out for three weeks.

The only good news for club and country is that the injury is to the other ankle, so it’s not a recurring problem.

But it still means the Gunners will have to try to overturn their 3-1 European deficit in Munich without him, and Roy Hodgson has lost one of his key men for the crucial qualifiers against San Marino and Montenegro.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger confirmed: “Jack Wilshere is out. He has an inflamed ankle, the other ankle to one he injured. I will be out for three weeks and will not be available for Munich, Swansea and not for England.

“Hopefully for the Premier League he will miss only one game. After that is an international break. We can slowly prepare him.

“I could see in the last couple of games he had started to dig deep. He has played 30 games. For us it is not welcome but maybe for him it is not bad that he has a little breather.

“It is more about prevention. The specialist decided he needed it. He has some bone bruising. The last time it deteriorated into a stress fracture. That’s what we don’t want to happen.

“We trust people who are specialists in this area. He was out for 17 months and we had to deal with it, we must be able to deal with it for two or three games.”