Ozil’s back injury caused by Fortnite binge? Emery responds

 

Arsenal boss Unai Emery has responded to claims that Mesut Ozil’s back injury has been caused by playing the computer game Fortnite.

The German playmaker, who returned to training on Wednesday, hasn’t played for the Gunners since a 1-1 draw against Wolves on November 11.

Ozil missed Premier League matches with Huddersfield and Manchester United after being ruled out of the north London derby against Tottenham with a back spasm.

He was named on the bench for Arsenal’s clash with Bournemouth but he didn’t make it onto the pitch.

And earlier this week it was claimed in a report that those back spasms could be caused by playing Fortnite for over five hours a day.

The Source says: ‘According to the statistics portal “Wasted on Fortnite”, Ozil’s game account has played around 5221 matches at last count.

‘The average game of Fortnite takes roughly 20 minutes.

‘Based on those numbers, Ozil has racked up a total playing time of 104,420 minutes, equating to 1740 hours or 72 days.’

A Sports physician confirmed to German newspaper BILD that Fortnite could be at the very least making his back problem worse, if not causing it in the first place.

When asked if Ozil’s injury was caused by playing the computer game too much, Emery replied: “I don’t know, tomorrow he is in the group, the 18 players for this match.

“We are going to decide if he will play tomorrow from the beginning or during the 90 minutes.”

Arsenal return to action on Thursday when they host Qarabag in their final Europa League group match.

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