Germany provide Kai Havertz injury update ahead of Arsenal's trip to Liverpool

Kai Havertz sustained a knee injury in Arsenal’s victory over Manchester United (Picture: Getty)

German national team director Rudi Voller has confirmed that Arsenal’s Kai Havertz will not be considered for selection ahead of the side’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Slovakia and Northern Ireland.

Havertz saw out the full 90 minutes after coming on as a second-half substitute for Viktor Gyokeres in Arsenal’s opening match of the Premier League season away to Manchester United .

But after the 1-0 win, it emerged that Havertz had suffered a knee injury at Old Trafford and the forward was subsequently ruled out of the Gunners’ clash with Leeds .

Reports in Havertz’s native Germany indicate that Havertz has ‘problems with the cartilage’ and ‘loose bodies in his knee’ – and the attacker has been undergoing tests to determine the best course of action in recent days.

Havertz now faces an anxious wait to discover whether or not he will require surgery again after going under the knife and missing three months of last season with a hamstring injury .

Facing the media ahead of Arsenal’s defeat of Leeds, Mikel Arteta revealed that the club were still in the dark regarding the severity of Havertz’s latest injury.

‘He’s got an injury, we don’t really know the extent of it. I think we need a bit more time and more tests. I think after that we’ll have more clarity about next steps,’ the Arsenal head coach told reporters.

The forward is undergoing tests to determine whether surgery is necessary (Picture: Getty)

Arteta is likely to be without Havertz for some time (Picture: Getty)

‘I don’t want to speak about the specifics. He’s not fit, we need to explore that issue a bit further and then decide what we’re going to do.

‘He cannot play tomorrow. I would love to have him fresh and available and bringing what he brings to the team. Unfortunately that’s not going to be possible.

‘Mentally he’s in a good place because he’s a strong boy, very committed. He had an incredible recovery from the hamstring surgery, he never had an injury before so it was the first experience.

‘Now he has a setback, we’ll see how bad it is but he will deal with it in the best possible way. Hopefully we’re going to have him soon.’

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Havertz will certainly miss Arsenal’s trip to champions Liverpool and Arteta is also expecting to be without Bukayo Saka, who went down with a hamstring problem in the victory over Leeds .

It remains to be seen if Martin Odegaard will be fit enough to feature on Merseyside after coming off with a shoulder injury at the Emirates.

Though the true extent of Havertz’s setback is yet to be revealed, the German national team have already accepted that they will not be able to call upon the Arsenal star for their upcoming games.

‘He certainly won’t make it,’ Voller, the director of the national side, said on Tuesday.

‘We don’t know exactly how it will go in the coming weeks, whether surgery is upcoming or it will be treated conservatively.’

Germany begin their World Cup qualifying campaign with a trip to Bratislava to take on Slovakia on September 4.

Three days later, Julian Nagelsmann’s side will play host to Northern Ireland at the RheinEnergieSTADION in Cologne.