Withdrawals and worries

Morning all.

It’s all about the withdrawals this morning, as a clutch of Arsenal players who were supposed to be involved for their countries have returned to north London. First up, after Noni Madueke had be taken off in the first half of England’s 1-1 draw with Uruguay, it was announced he’d be returning, along with Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka who had joined up late, for ‘medical assessment’.

Quite what that means, I’m not 100% sure. If my glass is half-full it’s simply a common sense approach over two players Thomas Tuchel already knows everything about, and who are sure things for his World Cup squad anyway. The half-empty glass might suggest to me that Madueke is properly banjaxed and they don’t want to risk another Arsenal player picking up a serious injury. But, in the absence of any further information at this point in time, we’ll have to just wait and see.

Elsewhere, Spain announced that Martin Zubimendi was withdrawing from the Spain squad for their game against Egypt tomorrow because of discomfort in his right knee. He played a few minutes against Serbia the other day, so who knows if this is a new issue, or one he’s been carrying for a while. Again, I really just hope it’s common sense. Zubimendi has played more minutes than any other outfield player this season, and could really do with whatever little rest he can get at this point. At the same time, if there is an problem with his knee, it wouldn’t be a surprise either, but hopefully it’s manageable.

Then, Piero Hincapie became the next player to pull out of international duty after he came off in the 72nd minute of Ecuador’s 1-1 draw with Morocco on Friday. There is video footage of him chasing back, looking uncomfortable, then dropping to the ground before his substitution, so that one is a bit of a worry. Again, it might be just caution, but the protocol also says you send a player back when he is actually injured rather than just being at risk of an injury. He and Madueke are the ones I’d have most concern over.

I suspect there’s probably a mix of actual issues and some common sense from the national sides. At this point of the season they’re aware how much more important the club games are. There’s also not that long until the summer tournament for those involved, and it wouldn’t take much to rule a player out of participating if they take risks for games that mean so little. Still, you can’t help but be a little worried when you look at the list of players who are, at this moment in time, on the injury list.

Of course, there are some Arsenal players still out there, three of them (Viktor Gyokeres, Christian Norgaard and Riccardo Calafiori) have huge play-off games tomorrow night to qualify for the World Cup. I think those players have strong personalities, but it must be another side-issue for Mikel Arteta to have to deal with if they don’t come through those games successfully. In 2010, when Russia failed to qualify for the World Cup, Andrei Arshavin was so sad he sat around eating Mr Kipling all day. There’s a lot at stake, Italy have missed the last two World Cups, for example, and there’s a lot of pressure to get there this time. From my side though, with no skin in the game regarding these qualifiers, I just hope they come through safe and sound.

For now, we just have to wait and see, and keep fingers crossed. I think the only way we’ll get any clarity on any of these issues is if there’s a serious problem for anyone. That kind of info tends to emerge much more readily than ongoing uncertainty or mild doubt. On that basis, let’s hope we don’t hear anything until Mikel Arteta’s pre-game press conference for the FA Cup game against Southampton on Saturday evening.

Right, I’ll leave it there, but you can join myself and James an Arsecast Extra a bit later. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com. So fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out around midday.

For now, have a good one.

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