Good morning to all. Welcome to a new week.
There is no World Cup today, the semifinals are on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The only Arsenal player left in the tournament is William Saliba and based on what we have seen so far, the only way he will play is if there is an injury, or if France have to play third/fourth place. . One would assume that most of the players who were on the fringes of the teams involved in that game would have a chance.
Bukayo Saka and Aaron Ramsdale should return soon, but it seems Arsenal have wisely given the players in the tournament a bit of time off after their departure. We had an interesting question on Arsecast Extra yesterday about the return of World Cup players, pointing out that in the same time period last season, Saka played more minutes for Arsenal than England in Qatar. Is there really any need to rest?
Maybe not, but I think a reboot is necessary. Regardless of the expectation levels beforehand, any kind of World Cup exit is sure to be disappointing. The whole focus will have shifted from domestic to international commitments, and it makes sense to me that, in order to refocus on their club football, they have a few days to wind down before hitting the road again.
Bar injury, as we have unfortunately experienced with Gabriel Jesús, I don’t think the physical demands of this mid-season World Cup are the biggest problem. There is no reason for any of our players to be fatigued when they might have played more if the regular season had continued. It’s really about compartmentalizing the World Cup and making sure they think back to the job at hand at Arsenal. Someone like Ramsdale, who didn’t play a minute, must surely be desperate to get back on the court.
From a purely Arsenal perspective, I think the biggest problem is the way it stopped our momentum. We’ve shown a knack this season for getting results even when we’re not playing at our best, so that interruption wasn’t particularly welcome. The job now for Mikel Arteta is to prepare his players to play again, but I am sure that this is something that will have been thought about and discussed before the World Cup arrived.
In the meantime, it’s good to see Ben White back in training after his surprise exit from the tournament. As always with incidents like this, there’s a lot of speculation as to what really happened, but he looks quite happy in the training photos. I realize that doesn’t tell anything like the whole story, but to me he’s the kind of character who isn’t too fazed by anything that’s outwardly said. If there is disappointment at not playing in the World Cup, it will be immediately compensated by his return to a team in which he is an important player and in which his coach trusts enormously.
The physical state of those players who are not in the World Cup is something else. On the one hand, the break will have allowed some of them to recharge their batteries, which is not a bad thing, but at the same time it’s clearly important to make sure they’re all in top form for the Premier League to resume. That’s why the upcoming matches against AC Milan (tomorrow) and Juventus (Saturday) are key to our preparation for West Ham and beyond.
One man who hasn’t been seen enough this season is Oleksandr Zinchenko, but he sounded positive about his fitness, saying:
“You know, I have a little muscle tension, but I’m almost there, so don’t worry about it.
“Obviously I’m also working hard to get my fitness back and be with the team as quickly as I can.”
The depth of the team in the second half of the season will be very important as we will be fighting in three competitions. Zinchenko has played just 604 minutes since his arrival in the summer, so expect to see many more between now and May. It’s not quite LANS (Like A New Signing), but it’s close enough, and fingers crossed we can add a couple of real new signings to the mix when the window opens in January, but more on that when there’s some news. real.
Right, that’s your lot for this morning. The Arsecast Extra was recorded yesterday, and if you haven’t had a chance to listen to it, it’s below. Have a good.
