Three Arsenal players \u2014 Noni Madueke, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice \u2014 were among eight withdrawals from England duty ahead of the Three Lions\u2019 second friendly of the March international break, a development that has increased injury concern around the Premier League leaders.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s official statement described Madueke\u2019s issue as nothing more than \u201ca knock.\u201d The same briefing would only go so far as to reveal that Rice and Saka had returned to north London “for medical assessment.” Manchester City\u2019s John Stones was also forced to pull out of Tuesday\u2019s friendly with Japan after he had \u201cpicked up an issue in training\u201d before Friday\u2019s draw with Uruguay.<\/p>\n
When fully fit there is little doubt that Stones would be Thomas Tuchel\u2019s first-choice defender. Blessed with a tactical brain sharpened by years under Pep Guardiola\u2019s tutelage, the ball-playing center back completely transforms the threat of this England side. It was notable that Uruguay let England\u2019s defensive duo of Harry Maguire and Fikayo Timori have as much time on the ball as they wanted at Wembley, safe in the knowledge that their high block would not be penetrated by any of the defenders\u2019 unadventurous passes. When Stones has possession, England\u2019s threat increases exponentially.<\/p>\n
The so-called \u2018Barnsley Beckenbauer\u2019 can escape a high press much more effectively than the treatment room. Stones has only started four Premier League games this season, sitting out 21 matches across all competition with multiple muscular injuries.<\/p>\n
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has made no secret of his disdain for international breaks. \u201cIt’s a period that I don\u2019t enjoy a lot,\u201d the Spanish coach fretted earlier this month, \u201cespecially when we have 18, 19 players playing and especially with what happened in our recent history with very important players, but it\u2019s part of the calendar and we have to accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s recent history of seeing players struck down while representing their country\u2014the so-called FIFA virus\u2014has repeated itself in the case of Madueke. He is one of eight Arsenal players to have pulled out of international fixtures in March. There are also concerns over Madueke and his compatriot Eberechi Eze, who is reportedly poised to miss the entirety of April with a calf injury sustained before the international break even began.<\/p>\n
The headline numbers may flatter the problem. Of Arsenal\u2019s eight international absentees, five pulled out of friendly fixtures before playing a single minute without any injury concerns heading into the break. Leandro Trossard, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka all started for the Gunners in last weekend\u2019s disappointing Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City and appeared to emerge from the fixture unscathed (physically, at least).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three Arsenal players withdrew from England duty, increasing injury concerns for title challengers .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961],"tags":[826,1066,1393],"class_list":["post-10094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-carabao-cup","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}