Mikel Arteta says Gabriel Jesus will definitely miss tomorrow’s Champions League clash with Sevilla and Martin Odegaard remains a doubt.
With both players selected by their countries for the upcoming Interlull, Arsenal supporters have been pontificating about the seriousness of their respective injuries with the club coy on the extent of Jesus’ hamstring problem and yet to release any details of Odegaard’s issue.
The Norway international was rested for the 5-0 win over Sheffield United, played 10 minutes of the Carabao Cup defeat to West Ham and was then completely absent from the squad that lost to Newcastle on Saturday.
In his pre-game press conference, Arteta revealed that Odegaard’s current issue is different to the one that forced him to rest the player previously.
“Gabi won’t be fit and with Martin, he’s still uncertain. The rest [Emile Smith Rowe and Thomas Partey], no news so far.
“Martin loves to play for his country and every time that he’s been called up and he was fit he’s been there and he will be there if that’s the case,” added Arteta.
“It’s no relation with what he had and what happened on the day before Newcastle, they are two different topics.”
Odegaard’s form had dipped before he was given a rest. He was the subject of a reckless challenge on his ankle from Mateo Kovacic in the win over Manchester City a month ago and some have speculated whether there have been lingering effects.
On the subject of Jesus’ selection for Brazil, interim national team head coach Fernando Diniz has said that as a big admirer of the striker he wants to check on the player in person. He also cited the fact he didn’t call up Gabriel Martinelli for the previous international break only to watch the player make an unexpected return against Manchester City.
“In the last squad, we hadn’t called up Martinelli from Arsenal. He didn’t report to the CBF in a very complete way, so we didn’t imagine that Martinelli would be ready to play against Venezuela and Uruguay, and he was ready to play before our games,” Diniz told Globo Esporte (translated by Sport Witness).
“Because of this too, we’re going to bring Gabriel in to find out his real condition, because we still have 15 days to go until the games, so we believe he could be fit enough to play, because I like him a lot. We have 24 players on the list, and if anything happens to him we won’t need to change the squad.”
Judging by those comments, you have to assume that he doesn’t trust the feedback he’s getting from the Arsenal medical team. Brazil play Colombia and Argentina – two crunch World Cup qualifiers – on 17 and 22 November respectively.
Earlier it was England and it is BrAzil now. When was the last time a country’s manager has blatantly apprised of being skeptic of the club doctor’s feedback?
International football is rubbish and not worth the aggro. Just have one truly world cup (every country loads of groups) for every country, every 5 years, with one month prep to get teams ready and a two month tournament. That’s it, no other international football any other time. There you go Arsene, you’re welcome!
Great idea! PGunner for president!
I don’t like the idea of making the world cup even crappier by adding even more teams. As it is half the group games have been unwatchable and now they’re expanding it. Having qualifiers is fine but just get them over with really quickly, 4-5 games for each team over two weeks in one place in the summer , then again another round of that a year later just before the world cup, that’s your prep. No need to have a single game during the season.
Of course they’ll never do either of our ideas because the national federations are greedy bastards and the home games of these qualifiers are how they get paid.
Believe you me mostly English fans think like this caring more about the Premier league. Understandable as its the biggest league. Outside everyone loves playing for their country. Partey somehow always fit for Ghana goes to show you.
Brazil manager twats.
Fuck right off
Thank you Dortmund. Thanks for beating those cunts!
Lets stuff Sevilla tomorrow. COYG!