Arsenal defender Gibbs suffers ligament damage

Arsenal defender Kieran Gibbs was on Thursday ruled out for several weeks after suffering knee ligament damage in his side’s League Cup win against Newcastle.

Gibbs sustained a medial ligament injury after 18 minutes of the Gunners’ 4-0 victory at St James’ Park on Wednesday.

The 21-year-old left-back will have a scan on Friday to check the extent of the problem, but Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger doesn’t expect Gibbs to be available for the next few weeks.

“We lost Kieran Gibbs last night. That is the bad news,” Wenger told Arsenal TV Online.

“It’s a medial knee ligament strain. It needs to be checked on the scan tomorrow (Friday) but it will be a few weeks.”

There was better news for Wenger over the fitness of Dutch forward Robin van Persie and Welsh midfielder Aaron Ramsey.

Wenger expects both long-term injury victims to return to full training by the end of next week.

“They should be back in the group at the end of next week,” he added. “Of course we should not set the same recovery time to Ramsey as van Persie.

“Aaron will need a longer period to be completely match fit for the first team. But van Persie is not far away now.”