Fabio Vieira's likely return game for Arsenal revealed amid key Premier League announcement

Arsenal supporters will be counting down the days until Fabio Vieira is available for selection again after the midfielder underwent an operation on his groin earlier in the week.

Already sidelined for three Premier League fixtures as a result of his sending off against Burnley just over a fortnight ago, a return to the Gunners' matchday squad for the UEFA Champions League tie at home to RC Lens was discussed for the 23-year-old prior to his absence from Tuesday's training session.

Having made three appearances in the competition so far and being an unused substitute in one other, not being spotted at London Colney immediately placed doubt over Vieira's involvement tonight (Wednesday) but it's since been revealed that he won't feature against the Ligue 1 outfit and potentially for the remainder of the year.

"Yeah, we’ve got a problem with him," Mikel Arteta revealed in the pre-Lens press conference. "He's been having some discomfort and we tried to have alternative treatment with him, and he wasn’t improving so we’ve sent him to see a specialist and that was to get an operation done in his groin, and we did that yesterday.

"We’re expecting him to be out for weeks now. We don’t expect him to do that [be back this side of the break], so let’s see how he evolves and obviously, the operation was done yesterday so we’re going to have to wait and see, but we will take it as it comes."

The 'break' Arteta was asked about is the Premier League winter break as gameweek 21 has been split across two weeks so each team will have one weekend off. For Arsenal, their London derby at home to Crystal Palace was originally scheduled for 3pm on Saturday, January 13, but has been pushed back one week.

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This can perhaps indicate a likely return game for Vieira in the best-case scenario as the aforementioned fixture announcement change gives him an extra week to recover and be available for selection against the Eagles - although Arteta has previously taken a cautious approach with injured players.

However, if the attacking midfielder is indeed sidelined until after the winter break then he will miss 10 games across all competitions as Arsenal face Lens, Wolves, Luton Town, Aston Villa, PSV Eindhoven, Brighton, Liverpool, West Ham United and Fulham before the end of the year.

Furthermore, with the Gunners in FA Cup third-round action the weekend of January 6, Vieira looks set to sit that fixture out too and Arteta will hope his side can cope with the absence of yet another midfield player - even if starts for the Portuguese playmaker have dried up of late.