They say that means he's out for "6 weeks if not more", but history suggests that 6 weeks would be rather optimistic. The Arsenal blog Just what the doctor ordered presents a pretty thorough analysis of the injury, including a list of footballers who've suffered the injury in the last few years. In every case they predicted a return after 6-8 weeks and in no case was that how things transpired. In fact the average time out for the five similar injuries was 14.8 weeks. Damn.

Of course, Thierry Henry and Emmanuel Adebayor are fine strikers (to say the least) but any club's got to miss their leading scorer. It looks like the chances of Thierry failing to finish the season top of the Arsenal pile in that regard have just plummeted, if not vanished. We'll particularly miss Robin in European games and away games, when we'd have chosen to play 4-5-1, and it'll be interesting to see how Arsene Wenger copes with that.

Perhaps in a 4-5-1 it'd be best to play Adebayor as the leading striker and Henry on the wing. Other options include Julio Baptista, Theo Walcott, and (hoping he's back from injury soon) Freddie Ljungberg. So it's not as if there aren't alternatives.

But the question for us is, does this mean that Jeremie Aliadiere stays? Le Boss said 10 days ago that he had no intention of selling the young striker, but hinted that Aliadiere might not be happy to stay at Arsenal given the obvious problems he'd have breaking into the first team. And Wenger's words certainly haven't been enough to deter interest from Middlesbrough and several French first division sides.

Well, now that van Persie's out Aliadiere is the most obvious like-for-like replacement, and his form in the League Cup win at Anfield suggests that despite our previous doubts, he might possibly be up to filling Robin's boots. Let's hope he can go even further towards proving himself with his anticipated performances again Tottenham in the semi-final which starts tomorrow and concludes at Ashburton Grove next Wednesday.