Mikel Arteta’s first team squad* is split straight down the middle when it comes to involvement in October’s Interlull. 13 players will head off for matches with their countries, seven will remain at London Colney because they are injured and a further six haven’t been called-up.
In yesterday’s pre-Southampton press conference, Mikel Arteta admitted he’s nervous about losing his players after what happened last month to Riccardo Calafiori, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Martin Odegaard.
He said: “I prefer not to watch the games, listen to nothing, and just pray that everybody is going to be fine, because the last one was a really difficult one to handle in many ways.”
He’s not wrong. Anyway, here’s what the lads are up to.
David Raya
Selected by Spain for Nations League clashes with Denmark and Serbia.
Norberto Neto
Not selected by Brazil.
Takehiro Tomiyasu
Injured, not selected by Japan.
Oleksandr Zinchenko
Injured, not selected by Ukraine.
Riccardo Calafiori
Selected by Italy for Nations League friendlies with Belgium and Israel.
Ben White
Injured / playing Uno with his wife.
Gabriel Magalhaes
Selected by Brazil for World Cup qualifiers against Chile and Peru.
William Saliba
Selected by France for Nations League matches with Israel and Belgium.
Jakub Kiwior
Selected by Poland for Nations League matches with Portugal and Croatia.
Kieran Tierney
Injured.
Jurrien Timber
Injured, not selected by the Netherlands.
Mikel Merino
Selected by Spain for Nations League clashes with Denmark and Serbia.
Thomas Partey
Selected by Ghana for two AFCON qualifiers against Sudan (one in Ghana, the other in Libya)
Jorginho
Not selected by Italy.
Declan Rice
Selected by England for Nations League friendlies with Greece and Finland.
Martin Odegaard
Injured, not selected by Norway.
Bukayo Saka
Selected by England for Nations League friendlies with Greece and Finland.
Kai Havertz
Selected by Germany for Nations League friendlies with Bosnia and Herzegovina & the Netherlands. UPDATE – Kai has subsequently dropped out of the Germany squad.
Gabriel Martinelli
Selected by Brazil for World Cup qualifiers against Chile and Peru.
Raheem Sterling
Not selected by England.
Gabriel Jesus
Not selected by Brazil.
Leandro Trossard
Selected by Belgium for Nations League friendlies with Italy and France.
Ethan Nwaneri
Selected by England under-19s for friendlies with Portugal, the Netherlands and France.
Tommy Setford
Injured.
Ayden Heaven
Not selected by England under-19s.
Myles Lewis-Skelly
Not selected by England under-19s.
__
*those included in last month’s squad photo.
NO injuries please, the load on our best players is too high. Hope they get some rest and don’t play all the friendlies.
So relieved Timber didn’t get selected, really need to take it easy with him, especially given how intensely and physically he plays when he’s on the pitch.
My biggest fears now are Kai and Saks given how much football they’ve been playing and how much we rely on both of them. Fingers crossed double hard.
They both have the endurance gene. Rice too. You can’t break those guys.
Hope you’re right. It can happen that a player has that gene… until one day they don’t. I’d rather not test it.
This interlull I shall be mostly sacrificing woodland critters to the Norse god David Busst.
(If you don’t know, don’t google it)
Touching wood
Say what you want about the EPL but I just can’t wait for the Nations League to get going.
Bwahaha
Still just glorified friendlies.
Think you missed the humour Martin
No one:
UEFA: Here’s the Nations League!!
Still no one:
UEFA: Here’s the new expanded and fairly weird Champions League format!!!
The “Club World Cup” is the worst of the lot.
I wish everyone one of the sat at home and played uno with their partners/parents/friends
Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if the club season was August-April with NO international interruptions, May was reserved for international qualifiers or friendlies, June was for international tournaments and the club world cup was scrapped. Makes sense to me. Players getting injured in low-level internationals would have a few months to recover before the new season starts.
And I could always go on holiday in May and never miss anything of consequence.
I wish they were resting.
If you like the World Cup and euros, then you have to accept that international football has to exist between them. There’s no real way to make these in between games more meaningful (though UEFA have tried), but without them the teams that would show up to these tournaments wouldn’t be teams. It’s already fairly ragged for the group stages as it is. I get all the annoyance about it but it’s the same reality for all the clubs as well.
Maybe I’d be prepared to scrap international football? Watch the rugby or cricket…
World Cup is fine (at least as long as it’s not in Qatar or Russia due to blatant corruption and results in hundreds if not thousands of workers getting killed). The Euros I can definitely do without, the football there tends to mostly be trash. Cut the number of midseason international games and interlulls in half, get rid of friendlies, and I’d be fine with international football.
Well if you love those things, get ready for them to be turbocharged in 2034 when Saudi Arabia hosts.
I actually really liked Wenger’s proposal a couple of years ago of having fewer, longer, international breaks and giving them a tournament feel. I’d much rather they played 6 games over 2.5 weeks now if it was the only break they had before christmas
I’m actually really surprised MLS is not in the U19 team. Who is making this decision? Have they seen him play? Tongue in cheek but wow.
I hate interlulls!
HELL YEAH!!! NATION’S LEAGUE BABBBYYYYY!!!