Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has confirmed that midfielder Tomas Rosicky will be ruled out for a "long time".
The Czech international made his long-awaited comeback in the FA Cup against Burnley but his returned only lasted for a few minutes.
His contract expires in the summer and it is unlikely that his contract will be extended beyond that period.
"We lost Tomas Rosicky for a longer period," Wenger said.
"It's too early [to say for how long he will be out]. The only thing we know is that it's a bad muscular injury that will keep him out for a long time.
"The good news is that he will apparently not need surgery as it is a partial rupture of his tendon but how long it takes, [whether] it is two months or three months, we don't know. We are all shocked and he is the most shocked and we have to patient and hope that it is not his last game.
"[But] apart from that Danny Welbeck is playing in the under-21s and everybody else should be available.
"He is playing today with the under-21s, for one half at least. I believe that he needs to play two or three games before thinking about coming back into the first team.
"We can organise games internally without being official games and I think in the next three weeks he should be available. He has not played for 10 months so we need to be patient with him.
"He has good basic fitness but after it is competitive decision-making and he needs to get used to that again. We are a bit relieved because with such an injury, you never know how a player will come back. But he looks promising in training."
