Premier League title challengers Arsenal have been hit with a body blow with the news that key attacker Bukayo Saka will be out for “many weeks” with a torn hamstring.
Saka has been in superb form again this season with 15 goal involvements in the Premier League already – scoring five times and providing ten assists.
But the 23-year-old went down holding his hamstring after 24 minutes and was forced to come off during Saturday's 5-1 thrashing of Crystal Palace and left Selhurst Park on crutches.
Manager Mikel Arteta admitted after the game he was “worried” about the extent of Saka's injury and his fears proved well-founded as he revealed in the press conference for Friday's game at home to Ipswich Town that the muscle was torn rather than just strained.
And the Spanish coach revealed that Saka “was gutted” at the news of how serious the injury was. “You can tell he's not been injured [seriously before] because he was really emotional, he was really down,” said Arteta – who will also be without loan attacker Raheem Sterling who has picked up a knee problem – on Monday.
“We need to lift him up because he's part of what we do. It's part of his job, and he will be fine, but he's going to need a few days.
“He's going to immediately realise that he's so important in that dressing room. His energy level, his body language, the way he communicates with the rest of the team, because it's the only way at the moment that he can help, so he better do that well.
“[It's] another part of the development of a player. At some stage at this level you're going to get injured. Unfortunately, [this is] badly. It could also have been much worse. It could have been something else that can take you out for a year.
“It's how you react to that, how you overcome that situation and it's a great learning process for him as well. It is what it is. He's injured, we cannot change it. We're going to use this time now to help him.”
England international Saka has been an increasingly influential figure at the North London club since making his debut in 2019, scoring 12, 15 and 20 goals in all competitions across the next three seasons.
He has nine goals in 24 matches this season, missing just two of the Gunners' 26 games across the league, League Cup and Champions League, also due to a hamstring problem.
Arteta believes that a serious problem like this was inevitable given the amount of games top players are expected to play for club and country, calling the workload “unsustainable”.
Saka has played more than 52 games in each of the last four seasons, including two European Championships and the mid-season 2022 World Cup in Qatar for his country.
“It's probably an accumulation of a number of seasons,” added Arteta. “Bukayo and Declan [Rice], they've played over 130 games in two seasons so what's going to happen in the second one, the third one, the fourth one? If that continues the same way, it's probably unsustainable.
“And we have to find ways to physically turn them into monsters. That they can cope with anything. The fact that you play and recover is not a good pattern because you don't train. And the body needs to train. You start to lose a lot of factors in the physical aspect that's key to performance.”
One glimmer of light for Saka, Arsenal and England is that Arteta is “very optimistic” that the injury will not mean the end of his season in which the Gunners are still active in four competitions, while the Three Lions start their new era under manager Thomas Tuchel with two games in March.
Arsenal sit third in the Premier League, five points behind leaders Liverpool, who have a game in hand, and take on Newcastle United in a two-legged League Cup semi-final (January 7 and February 5) plus Manchester United in the FA Cup third round (January 12).
In the revamped Uefa Champions League, they lie third in the table after six matches, with another two games to go in the group stage, at home to Dinamo Zagreb (January 21) and away at Girona (January 29).
Tuchel starts his England reign with a World Cup qualifying double-header against Albania on March 21 followed by Latvia three days later.
Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
