Morning.
Some quick Friday bits for you. Mikel Arteta’s press conference takes place at 1.30 today, and we’ll all be waiting to hear news about injured players and potential returns ahead of Sunday. Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber are the two we’re waiting on most closely, but perhaps there’ll be a Martin Odegaard update too.
It has been reported that Norway are hoping to call him up for their two games in the November Interlull, which might be an indication that he’s close to making a comeback. Is this weekend too soon? We’ll see. I did enjoy the almost unanimous reaction from Arsenal fans to this news, which was to basically tell Norway and their manager get stuffed. Which, you know, I understand because he picked up that injury on international duty and, to be fair to Norway, the fact it’s the Nations League means nobody really cares about these games.
The only thing I’d say is that if he does return before the Interlull and plays for us, it’s difficult for us to tell Norway he’s not fit enough for them. Personally, I would hope some common sense would apply, and that they figure they have enough to win games against Slovenia and Kazakhstan without him. It’s one thing making a comeback, but managing the load on your return is an important consideration, even if there’s a slight case to be made that getting some competitive minutes under his belt could help him regain match fitness.
In his programme notes this week, the captain said:
I’m feeling better and better each day, but when it’s an ankle injury you have ups and downs as well. Some days you feel really good, and then sometimes you can have a little reaction. But in general it’s getting better and I feel like I’m getting closer now.
It does sound a bit like he still has a little way to go in his recovery, but perhaps he is in cahoots with his manager about what kind of information finds its way into the public domain! Time will tell.
Meanwhile, early reports from the Italian press regarding Riccardo Calafiori suggest that he didn’t suffer any serious damage in the incident against Shaktar on Tuesday night. They say he’s still going to be sidelined, but it’s more likely to be a case of a few weeks rather than anything more prolonged. That would probably rule him out of the run of games between now and the Interlull but all going well he’d be back after that.
With any reporting like this, I don’t think I’ll feel particularly comforted until there’s something a bit more official – in as much as Arteta will give us anything in that regard – but I think if the injury was really, really serious, we’d have had that reported by now, so fingers crossed. As I wrote yesterday, it looks as if the manager has some serious thinking to do about left-back for Sunday though.
In The Athletic (£) James and David Ornstein report that James King has been appointed as Director of Football Operations, filling the gap left by Richard Garlick after he moved up to become Managing Director. King has previously worked at Arsenal, in the commercial and football departments, and rejoins after a spell working as general counsel for the PFA (Professional Footballers Association).
Beyond that, not a great deal going on this morning, so we’ll leave it there for now. We’ll bring you all the press conference stories and updates on Arseblog News, and later this afternoon we’ll look ahead to the Liverpool game in-depth with our preview podcast over on Patreon. For instant access to that, and everything we do there, you can sign up for just $6 per month (+ VAT where applicable) at patreon.com/arseblog.
For now, have a good one!
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