Kai Havertz breaks his silence after undergoing hamstring surgery – as training-ground injury rules out the Arsenal star for the rest of the season

Arsenal striker Kai Havertz has broken his silence after suffering a season-ending injury. 

Havertz will miss the remainder of the campaign after suffering a hamstring injury during a training camp in the United Arab Emirates, as first reported by Mail Sport.

The German successfully underwent surgery on Saturday and will start a recovery programme which will extend into pre-season. 

Havertz posted on social media: ‘The last few days have been tough to process both physically and mentally. But yesterday was a good day. A successful op and a win’

‘Thanks for all the messages of support over the last few days, it’s really helped.

‘I’m now focused on my journey to full fitness and giving all the support I can give to the team in the background.’

Havertz’s injury has left Arsenal with just three fit attackers in Leandro Trossard, Ethan Nwaneri and Raheem Sterling. 

However, it was Mikel Merino who proved to be the hero in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Leicester, with the Spaniard coming off the bench to score a late quick-fire brace. 

The midfielder said: “He [Mikel Arteta] told me to come in as a striker this morning. We were talking about it a little bit with one of the assistants. It is the first time in my career that I’ve played that position.

“He told me to go with my strengths and luckily I could help the team with two goals today.”

Arteta explained his decision to play Merino as a striker, saying: ‘I didn’t think about him, to be fair. It was a lot of debate. I didn’t want to drive him crazy. I said to him this morning that he might play there, we believe he could sit there if the game needed the context. He won the game for us.

‘But Mikel has got that. It’s a good threat because he can smell danger. He can anticipate the action. He’s got really good timing to arrive to certain areas. 

‘And then, obviously, he has the capacity to execute with a lot of parts of his body. And he needed the delivery. He certainly had that as well and he put it in the back of the net.’