AC Milan hope Brazilian striker Alexandre Pato can recover from an ankle injury in time for the Champions League match at Arsenal later this month, vice-president Adriano Galliani said.

The 18-year-old, who has netted four goals since his arrival at the start of January, hurt his ankle after coming on as a substitute and scoring in Sunday's 1-0 win at Fiorentina.

The European champions visit the English Premier League leaders in a last 16 first-leg clash on Feb. 20. "I have heard from the doctors. The hope is that we will have him for London," Galliani told Italian media.

Milan have suffered a minor injury crisis with Gennaro Gattuso, Kaka, Ronaldo, Clarence Seedorf and Filippo Inzaghi carrying knocks.

However, they are all expected to be fit for the Arsenal tie with Gattuso's thigh injury not as bad as first thought. "He has a muscle problem. We need to speak to the doctors but we hope to have him available next week," Galliani added.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.