Jack Wilshere will be back in training in a month’s time and is on course for a speedy return from his ankle injury, the midfielder revealed this week.
The 19-year-old has not played this season after first suffering the injury on England duty back in June, and then breaking down during the Emirates Cup pre-season tournament in July.
He finally had surgery in September and was not expected to return to action until February.
However, the Gunners star believes his recovery is ahead of schedule and was in positive mood this week.
"I should be back in training by mid-December, then I can crack on and it’s up to the boss when he picks me," said Wilshere after seeing a specialist to check his progress this week.
"It's massively frustrating, especially after last year when we were so close to winning a trophy," said Wilshere.
"I was looking forward to this season, I really thought we could push on and do something. To get a setback is massively frustrating but I’ll be back in December and hopefully we can push on from then."
Wilshere was a frustrated spectator as Arsenal started the season in disastrous fashion, but now feels his team-mates are getting used to playing with each other after the high-profile summer departures of his midfield colleagues Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas was followed by five players arriving in late August.
"We seem to get better and better every week," said Wilshere. "We had a bad start to the season and everyone knows that. I'm not going to lie and say we did well, we didn't.
"The boys had to play together, they're new players some of them. We seem to be getting better and better every week.
"[Against West Brom] was probably one of our best performances. We passed it around like the old Arsenal and we seem to be back to winning ways."
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