Raheem Sterling has been active on social media for the first time since Mikel Arteta confirmed the Arsenal loanee would be out for weeks with a knee injury.
The setback coincides with Bukayo Saka tearing his hamstring during the Gunners' last match before Christmas against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. Sterling would have been an option to replace his former England international teammate but he was not in the matchday squad.
Arteta revealed before the match that Sterling felt something in their final training session. The winger had played 70 minutes midweek during their League Cup quarter-final victory over the same opponents.
Before that outing, his 11th since joining on loan from Chelsea, he had been an unused substitute in four consecutive matches. "He is going to be out for weeks," Arteta said on Monday after acknowledging "it’s not looking good (for Saka). He’s going to be out for many weeks."
The manager also confirmed Sterling "needs further testing tomorrow to understand the extent of his injury. It's his knee."
On Christmas Eve, the day those tests were said to be taking place, the player was active on his Instagram story. Sterling shared two posts about Agent Sasco and DASECA's song, 'Everything & Anything,' which features Lila Ike.
He tagged the former and the latter in the first post, which included an image of the cover art inside a vinyl record and the track playing on the story post. Sterling later posted a video of a young schoolchild holding a shoe box with the Clarks logo and seemingly Sterling's signature on the front.
In the video, the child says, "Raheem Sterling, I love my shoes." Captioning the post, Sterling tagged The Raheem Sterling Foundation before adding, "What it's all about," punctuating the message with a red heart and a Christmas tree emoji.