{"id":580989,"date":"2026-04-02T15:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580989\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T15:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:45:08","slug":"will-arsenals-international-injury-crisis-spill-over-into-the-club-season-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580989\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Arsenal\u2019s international injury crisis spill over into the club season? | Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the benefit of hindsight, Mikel Arteta\u2019s response to a question before Arsenal\u2019s victory over Everton<\/a> last month about how the forthcoming international break might affect his squad was revealing. \u201cWe have really good communication with most of them,\u201d Arteta replied when asked whether he was planning to speak to the various international managers that were expected to call up his players. \u201cWe\u2019ll wait and see how everybody is and have those conversations and make the right decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering that Arsenal<\/a> were still pursuing an unprecedented quadruple at the time, was this the most nervous he had ever felt going into an international break? \u201cIt\u2019s a period that I don\u2019t enjoy a lot,\u201d admitted Arteta. \u201cEspecially when we have 18, 19 players playing. And especially with what happened in our recent history with very important players. But that is part of the calendar and we have to accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of Arsenal\u2019s defeat to Manchester City<\/a> in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley, it didn\u2019t take long for the withdrawals to begin. First William Saliba pulled out of France\u2019s squad with a left ankle injury despite playing the whole game at Wembley and he was swiftly followed by Jurri\u00ebn Timber, who has been struggling with a groin issue and wasn\u2019t part of the matchday squad against City.<\/p>\n

In the next 24 hours, Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es \u2013 who would have been at the forefront of Arteta\u2019s mind when referring to \u201cour recent history\u201d after the defender suffered a groin injury<\/a> in a friendly win over Senegal at the Emirates in November that kept him out until the new year \u2013 withdrew from Brazil\u2019s squad as Leandro Trossard did the same from Belgium\u2019s. Eberechi Eze was also forced to excuse himself from England duty due to the calf problem that ruled him out of the Carabao Cup final.<\/p>\n

Noni Madueke lies on the Wembley turf after picking up an injury against Uruguay. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Arsenal had been hopeful that captain Martin \u00d8degaard \u2013 who missed a large portion of last season after injuring ankle ligaments on international duty \u2013 could return against City after a persistent knee issue but he didn\u2019t feature and subsequently pulled out of Norway\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n

Arteta\u2019s efforts to protect his players as they prepare for a demanding run-in that will define Arsenal\u2019s campaign have brought comparisons to the Sir Alex Ferguson era at Manchester United. He famously described internationals as \u201ca waste of time\u201d and Wayne Rooney revealed last year that Ferguson insisted his players featured for \u201cno more than 45 minutes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet Arteta\u2019s worst fears appeared to have come true last Friday evening when Noni Madueke and Piero Hincapi\u00e9 both limped out of their respective friendlies for England and Ecuador. Madueke was spotted leaving Wembley in a knee brace while Hincapi\u00e9 had to determine the severity of a suspected muscle injury. Both are expected to be ruled out of Saturday evening\u2019s trip to face Southampton in the FA Cup but Arsenal are hopeful that they could return sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

Given the furious reaction there has been to the large number of withdrawals from fans of some rival clubs, all eyes will be on how many of the others who pulled out of international squads this week will feature at St Mary\u2019s. Thomas Tuchel was adamant that Bukayo Saka \u2013 another with a history of picking up injuries on international duty \u2013 and Declan Rice had genuine issues and \u201cwanted desperately to play to get the narrative straight\u201d after being given the first week off from England\u2019s training camp. The reality is their extraordinary workload for club and country over the last three seasons since the last World Cup means both could really do with a prolonged rest before the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Sporting Lisbon next week in Portugal.<\/p>\n

Piero Hincapi\u00e9 limped out of Ecuador\u2019s friendly against Morocco. Photograph: \u00d3scar del Pozo\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The same can be said for Mart\u00edn Zubimendi, who became the 11th Arsenal player to withdraw from an international squad on Monday due to \u201cpain in his left knee\u201d. The Spain midfielder has been on the pitch for more minutes than any other Arsenal player in the Premier League this season, just edging out Rice and Timber. Arteta has so far proved reluctant to allow Christian N\u00f8rgaard to deputise for Zubimendi in the biggest games, with the experienced Denmark international who was a second-half substitute in their World Cup playoff defeat to the Czech Republic on penalties still yet start a top-flight match since joining from Brentford last summer.<\/p>\n

At least no one could accuse Viktor Gy\u00f6keres of not being committed to Sweden\u2019s cause. His hat-trick against Ukraine set up a playoff final against Poland and the \u00a364m striker scored a dramatic late winner<\/a> in Solna that should provide a timely shot of confidence for what lies ahead. By contrast, Riccardo Calafiori will return to north London after playing 120 minutes in the defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/a> bruised by Italy\u2019s third successive failure to qualify for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Having already played 50 matches in a marathon season and with potentially another 15 to come should they go all the way to the final in the FA Cup and Champions League, it will continue to be a delicate balancing act for Arteta even if he has one of the deepest squads ever assembled in the Premier League. As they deal with the psychological blow of again missing out on a first major trophy since 2020 against their closest rivals in the title race, he will hope Arsenal are ready to hit the ground running.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the benefit of hindsight, Mikel Arteta\u2019s response to a question before Arsenal\u2019s victory over Everton last month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-580989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}