Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has sought to clarify the situation surrounding the decision to allow Mesut Ozil to play on in the recent game at Chelsea while carrying a knee problem.
Ozil, the Gunners' club record signing, faces a spell on the sidelines after scans on international duty with Germany discovered a "partial rupture of the outer band of the left knee joint". He is now set to be sidelined for up to two months.
It has been suggested Wenger went against the advice of both the player and Arsenal's own medical staff by keeping Ozil on during the Barclays Premier League game at Stamford Bridge on October 5 as his side looked to get back into a match they would go on to lose 2-0.
However, the Arsenal manager insists there was nothing untoward and he had even stressed to Ozil the need to come off if he felt any problems.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of Saturday's game against Hull, Wenger said: "He (Ozil) did not tell me anything during the game, I did not even know.
"What happened was that at half-time, just before we went out, the physio told me 'Ozil has a little pain with his knee, but it is not bad'.
"He wanted to go on and I told him 'if you don't feel well, tell me and I will take you off straight away'. He never did that during the whole game, and after that I left him on because we were in a position where we needed to score a goal and he can deliver the final ball.
"Then after the game, he went to Germany. With Germany, they thought at the start it was nothing.
"We played on Sunday, on Monday he was off, and on Tuesday they gave him the day off. He was supposed to practise on Wednesday.
"On Wednesday morning, he said he could still not practise.
"They sent him for a scan, and in this scan they discovered that he had a knee ligament injury which is quite serious."
Ozil is not expected to return to action until the start of 2015.
Wenger added: "That is the only positive, that he will get the rest that he did not maybe have enough of after the World Cup.
"Although I must say, I gave them until August 11, Germany played the final on July 13. That was a month and should be enough after a big competition.
"He is out for a while now, I think at least six weeks."
Arsenal have seen several players hit by injury, with defender Laurent Koscielny out because of an inflamed Achilles the latest casualty.
However, winger Theo Walcott is set to play for the club's under-21s on Friday after nine months out with a knee injury, and captain Mikel Arteta could feature against Hull, while Aaron Ramsey is expected back for the Champions League tie away to Anderlecht in Brussels.
"We have (Olivier) Giroud ahead of schedule as well, so we have some positive news, but in the defensive department, with the suspension of (Calum) Chambers, we are a bit short (on Saturday)," said Wenger.
Chambers is one player who could be in contention for the England Under-21s at next summer's European Championship after Gareth Southgate's squad booked their place with a play-off victory over Croatia earlier this week.
Wenger, though, believes that for those who have already been promoted to the senior set-up it should be club before country.
"Once a guy has moved up to the full national team, (if) you put him down (to the under-21s) he is never good," said Wenger.
"Apart from on the selfish front for us when a guy has played 50 games, it is better that a guy has a good rest during the summer. But most of the time, when they move down, they are not completely at their quality."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article