France play Sweden tonight in a World Cup qualifier, and Laurent Koscielny is likely to play at the heart of the defence.
However, next week there’s a friendly with the Ivory Coast, and Arsene Wenger is hoping that Didier Deschamps will show the kind of common sense Jogi Low did when he gave Mesut Ozil this international break off.
The Arsenal manager believes there’s nothing to be gained from playing the 31 year old in an uncompetitive game, and for the benefit of the player is looking for France to do the right thing.
“I’ve never tried to prevent a player from international duty,” he said. “When it’s a competitive game I never intervene.
“Now Koscielny goes to the French national team, having played every single game apart from the first game of the season with us.
“France plays a friendly with Ivory Coast in the second game on Tuesday night. I can’t see the purpose of Koscielny playing the second game, because afterwards we play at Manchester United and then Paris Saint Germain.”
Wenger is hopeful that Deschamps own experiences as a club manager will give him an understanding of Arsenal’s position, and he says the Interlulls are a time of terror for him and the medical staff.
“Sometimes you have a sleepless night because some of your players have been injured,” he said, “and sometimes you are angry because they play a friendly game, they are overloaded with games and instead of being taken off they play the full 90 minutes.
“We have an hour afterwards where we text each other, myself and the physios, to ask: ‘are they alright? Oh, we’ve got this injury, we’ve got that injury.’”
Let’s hope, after the problems suffered by Alexis and Hector Bellerin, the rest the lads come through unscathed.
Absolutely no reason to play a friendly. Shouldn’t that be a platform for young guns to prove their worth for the national team?
Welcome to the cold chill of November………….
I knew this injury innuendo ( reality with Hector) , and all the other nonsense would start during an Interlull where we just lost two points in our last match and the next one is up at the “theatre of shite”.
Wenger has it all covered……….we shall get through this miserable fucking month, and out the other side, stronger , happier and more unified,……jeez, these drugs I’m on are terrific!!!
I love Jenkinson as a person and he’s a decent player, but not even close to the quality of Bellerin. Generally teams with pace target our left fullback, monreal. Despite him being one of the most consistant players we have – teams view him as a weakness and attack that side heavily. When it was Alexis on the left it made attacking through that channel more difficult, but with iwoibi in front of monreal that flank has been relatively easy to make progress down. Now with Bellerin out, teams are going to be able to make progress down both flanks,… Read more »
It never rains but it pours 🙁
I can completely imagine a whatsapp chat group with Arsene and the physios…
Colin Lewin: Boss, Alexis’ has a little bit hamstring niggle.
AW: [poop emoji]
I pray November be omitted from calendar…
Deschamps is a fool and he’s been a d*ck to Wenger before (about Diaby, as I recall). So don’t be surprised if he plays Kos in the game next week…Jogi Low on the other hand: what a man!
I think it is the clubs that over play players, with so many ($$ generating) games and competitions.
I love international football as you get to see th different styles of different nations, where club football have mostly adopted similar tactics. The format is not great, but it needs to be protected.
International coaches get little time to trial new players in the team. And this means trialling combinations of new/young players with existing starting players.
Wow an alternative viewpoint..refreshing javelin.
Still hope Kos gets given a rest tho…trial Umtiti with Varane