Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin has credited his new vegan diet with improving his fitness this season.

The Spanish full-back cut animal products from his meals at the start of the season and credits them with improving his recovery and easing the pressure on his troublesome ankles.

Bellerin had been plagued by a niggling ankle injury last season, missing over a month of football between November and December and struggling to shake off the problem in the later months of the campaign.

The 23-year-old has had no such problems this season and played the full 90 minutes in every one of Arsenal’s first 28 league games, though since Arsene Wenger’s priorities have switched to the Europa League Bellerin has been used more sparingly.

However he told the Players’ Tribune that the changes he has made to his diet means he is more capable of dealing with the rigours of modern football than ever before.

“I’ve been vegan since the beginning of the season more or less,” he said. “At the beginning I wanted to try it for a couple of weeks to detox my body and stuff, but I just felt so great after it that I’ve been doing it for more than six months now.

“For me the most important thing is the inflammation in my body after games and the speed that my body recovers compared to before. I’ve always had little problems in my ankles when I played very hard games, they would get inflamed and very stiff.

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“Now I don’t even have to strap them to play anymore. It doesn’t just make a difference in your body but I strongly believe that what we’re doing to the earth we get paid back.

“Getting rid of all the food I was eating and going to this plant based diet it did take those few days to actually feel better, but when it got to the beginning of the third week I felt so good.

"I was waking up in the mornings and had so much energy whereas before I used to be that person who would snooze the alarm five times before they got out of bed.

"Players like Nacho Monreal - I hang with him a lot - and [Laurent[ Koscielny they tell me 'Hector where's the meat on the plate?' They always try to put it on my plate but it's all fun.”

Bellerin is not the only player to have felt the benefits of dietary changes. Jack Wilshere revealed in January that removing gluten and dairy from what he ate had put him in “the best shape that I have ever been in.”

Vice-captain Laurent Koscielny has also embraced yoga as a way of easing his own injury troubles, claiming it had helped him to deal with the chronic tendon problems that he has suffered since 2014.