Waiting for press conference fitness updates

Good morning.

A very quick Friday blog. Mikel Arteta meets the press this morning ahead of our game against Bournemouth tomorrow, with a number of fitness/injury issues on the minds of fans. Unquestionably he will be reticent to give too much information away, but on the agenda:

• Bukayo Saka – after his hamstring issue for England
• Gabriel Martinelli – calf problem while away with Brazil
• Ben White – knee, but seems to be ok to walk dogs without much fuss
• Kai Havertz – knee, didn’t go away with Germany
• Jurrien Timber – knee, being ‘managed’ according to Arteta
• Oleksandr Zinchenko – calf, hasn’t been in a squad since August 31st
• Takehiro Tomiyasu – rumours of a problem, but nothing confirmed
• Martin Odegaard – general update perhaps

There are some training pics on the official site, but none of them give us any insight into the fitness or availability of any of the players listed above. So, let’s see what he says in his press conference and take it from there.

I liked this interview with Riccardo Calafiori on the BBC (many of you, like me, will need a VPN if you’re not in Britain), but he talked about learning English and his goal celebration against Man City. He ran to the touchline, jumped into Mikel Arteta’s arms, while vigorously pointing at someone. Except, he wasn’t pointing at anyone in particular, as he explained:

I don’t know, it’s not myself who run to Arteta, it was another person, I don’t know. And I was kept doing this pointing but I don’t know to who, I swear. I was like blank.

I enjoy the idea that he just made up an imaginary ‘enemy’ to pick out after he scored one of our goals of the season so far. Let’s hope we see more of those in the weeks and months ahead. Calafiori banging one in, then going crazy at the invisible man or woman during his celebrations.

Meanwhile, Jack Wilshere looks set to leave Arsenal to take up a first team coaching role at Norwich City. There’s a vacancy there after one of their first team coaches left, and there’s also an Arsenal connection as the club’s former loan manager Ben Knapper is in situ at Carrow Road as Norwich’s Sporting Director. Maybe that’s just a coincidence, but it’s also quite normal for young coaches to move around as they build their careers.

I remember Freddie Ljungberg began coaching Arsenal U15s (including one Bukayo Saka), before leaving for Wolfsburg with former Academy head Andries Jonker. He returned to Arsenal to coach the U23s, then had a very short stint as interim manager in the period between Unai Emery’s departure and Mikel Arteta’s arrival. He stayed as part of the current manager’s set-up until the end of the season, but since then has focused more on media work than coaching.

Anyway, it looks like Jack has ambitions to be a head coach. He was linked with jobs at Colorado Rapids and Aberdeen, so more senior experience will be crucial for his development. Good luck to him as and when it happens, and it’ll be interesting to see who gets the nod to fill his shoes with the U18s.

I mentioned Ben White and dog walking above, he’s done an interview with goalkeeper turned podcaster Ben Foster which I haven’t had time to fully watch yet, but which looks quite interesting so far. It’s also got dogs, which as we all know, makes everything better. Unless you’re a squirrel. You can check it out on YouTube here.

And for your listening pleasure this morning, I have a brand new Arsecast chatting about Gabriels Jesus and Martinelli, Mikel Merino, full-backs, and lots more with Alex Moneypenny from The Different Knock. You can check it out below.

We’ll have all the press conference stories on Arseblog News a little later, and a Bournemouth preview podcast on Patreon late this afternoon. Until then.

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