Arsene Wenger confirms Mesut Ozil will be out for 'at least six weeks' and defends club's treatment of Arsenal star's injury

Arsene Wenger was forced to defend his handling of Mesut Ozil after the midfielder was ruled out for up to 12 weeks by Germany team doctors.

Ozil suffered knee ligament damage after playing on through injury in defeat to Chelsea nearly two weeks ago, but Wenger has denied that he knew the severity of the German international's condition.

He said: “We thought the Ozil injury was nothing because he finished the game [against Chelsea]. He is out for a while now, I think at least six weeks. He [the physio] told me that [he was injured] once it was discovered on the scan. He didn’t tell me anything during the game. I didn’t even know.

“What happened during the game was that at half time just before we went out, the physio told me he has a little pain in his knee but it is not bad. He wanted to go on and I told him, ‘If you don’t feel well, tell me and I take you off straight away’. He never did that and I left him on as we were in a position where we needed to score a goal.

“Then after the game he went to Germany. With Germany, they thought it was nothing. We played on Sunday, Monday he was off, they gave him Tuesday off. He was supposed to practice on Wednesday and then in the morning he said he could still not practice. Then they sent him for a scan and in that scan they discovered that he had a knee ligament injury that it quite serious.”