The international break is past its halfway mark and it’s almost possible to return attention fully back to club football.
Arsenal will hope to scrape through the remainder of the period without too many worries before a busy eight days sees them face Bournemouth, Shakhtar Donetsk and Liverpool as the season once again intensifies. Mikel Arteta has already endured one scare with Bukayo Saka and will hope the remainder of his players featuring for their national teams emerge unscathed.
Some have been able to continue promising form with Leandro Trossard getting on the scoresheet in Belgium’s draw against Italy. The Gunners will certainly hope to hit the ground running against the Cherries.
Mirror Football takes a look at the last news around the Emirates as the clock ticks down on the return of the Premier League.
The Gunners have not had a great deal of luck in recent international breaks but will be hopeful they can nuture Bukayo Saka back to fitness after it was decided he would not travel with England to play against Finland.
Saka picked up an injury in defeat to Greece, and was substituted in the 52nd minute of the 2-1 loss at Wembley. The Arsenal star walked gingerly as he left the stadium and Lee Carsley confirmed he would undergo a scan.
“He’s being assessed,” he said in his post-match press conference. “Obviously, in the build-up to the first goal, you could see he felt something in his leg.”
Saka, who has started every game for the Gunners this season, instead will return to Arsenal for further assessment of his injury.
Martin Odegaard relief
September’s international break saw Arsenal and Norway captain Martin Odegaard fall victim to injury and has yet to return to action. Arteta and co have had to manage without their star midfielder and supporters were left worried in recent days when reports of a setback emerged.
However, there remains an expectation that the 25-year-old could return in November as he recovers from his ankle injury. That remains within Arsenal’s initial hopes of a return.
Speaking in his Arsenal programme notes last week, Odegaard said: “I just wanted to start with the latest on my injury and rehab. In the last week or so I’ve made really good progress.
“I’m getting better and better by the day and feel it’s going well. When you feel like things are moving forward, it gives you motivation to do more and more, and work harder. Today is our last game before another international break, so that gives me some more time to work on the rehab, too.
“Hopefully it won’t be much longer; I think we will know more as soon as I get out on the training pitches and we see how my ankle responds to that. At the moment it’s progressing well and it looks better than we were thinking, but we’ve still got to take every day as it comes.”
