As Martin Odegaard limped off the pitch against Austria earlier this week, things were looking decidedly grim for Arsenal.
Already shorn of the services of Declain Rice and Mikel Merino, the Gunners were faced with the possibility of playing a north London derby without any of their first-choice midfield – and that’s without factoring in the absences of Gabriel Jesus and Riccardo Calafiori.
It was looking a lot like an already difficult proposition was about to become twice as hard.
As Mikel Arteta faced the press today (Friday) however, it seems matters may be a little rosier than the doomsters among us had feared. Here’s what the manager had to say:
on Martin Odegaard’s injury:
We need some more tests so let’s see what happens in the next day or so, this afternoon probably, and see what happens, what the extent of the injury is and how quickly we can get him back. He’s super positive about everything. We know Martin – he wants to be there every single day but we have to wait and see.
on whether Martin is hopeful that isn’t as bad as feared:
I’ll leave that to the doctor but he’s willing, there’s no question about that. He wants to be present every game and obviously in a big game like this one, but we need to make sure that we know first of all how good he can be or not.
on not ruling him out of the derby:
Players with 48 hours to go are always available but let’s see what happens.
on Mikel Merino’s injury:
It’s better, it’s a slow process because it’s a bone and it takes a while to heal. He is progressing well and is already doing some stuff. He is working extremely hard and we’re using this time to make sure that he understands a lot of things that he has a lot of questions about, and when he’s back he’s ready to go and impact the team.
on whether he’ll be back before the next international break:
We don’t know honestly. It’s very difficult to understand the healing of the bone. I think at the moment he doesn’t have a lot of symptoms so you can speed it up very quickly because he hasn’t lost anything else but we have to wait and see.
on Gabriel Jesus returning to training:
Gabby was out there, he’s got another session tomorrow and if everything goes well he will be ready to be selected in this squad which is great news for us.
on Riccardo Calafiori’s availability:
It’s another one that we have to wait another day or so.
Now, as close watchers of Arsenal will know, the manager is an expert obfuscator and user of the ‘word salad’, especially when it comes to injuries. He rarely gives much away. That may be the case again here and these quotes could be designed to confuse but, at least to me, they betray a certain amount of positivity.
It’s worth bearing in mind that this season will be long and the games plentiful so rushing anyone back is unlikely to pay dividends in the long run. If there are lingering doubts about the condition of Odegaard, Jesus or Calafiori, they should be rested and the squad will have to make do.
However, if we can get them fit and ready for this weekend it would provide a tremendous boost, not only to the squad but to what has been an anxious fan base this week.
We won’t know anything for certain until the team sheets are released on Sunday, of course, and everything until then is guesswork but, at least for now, things are looking a little better than they had been.
Quotes from arsenal.com
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