Arsenal confirmed a significant number of internationals returned prematurely from duty after medical assessments identified risks of aggravating existing problems. England manager Thomas Tuchel said the club trio of Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Noni Madueke were sent home once it became clear the danger of re-injury \u201cwas way too big.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuchel added: “Everyone will be out for quite some days but not dramatically.” He explained the decision on Saka and Rice: “We had an assessment after the match and none of them were able to stay and get any minutes, so we released them, of course.” Regarding Madueke, whose images showed him limping in a knee brace, Tuchel said the winger\u2019s \u201cfeeling\u201d was \u201cslightly better\u201d than those pictures and warned: “He will be out for some days.” <\/p>\n
The England contingent followed a wider pattern at the club, with as many as 10 Arsenal players returning early from international duty with injury concerns. That group included players across several levels of severity:<\/p>\n
– Eberechi Eze (England): calf, out for at least a month. He missed last weekend\u2019s Carabao Cup final and reports fear he could be sidelined until the end of April.
\n– Noni Madueke (England): knee, doubtful after one international appearance.
\n– Piero Hincapi\u00e9 (Ecuador): knock, doubtful after one international appearance.
\n– Mart\u00edn Zubimendi (Spain): knee, doubtful after one international appearance.
\n– Jurri\u00ebn Timber (Netherlands): ankle, minor concern. He missed the Wembley showpiece with an ankle problem that had been troubling him for days.
\n– Leandro Trossard (Belgium): hip, minor concern.
\n– William Saliba (France): ankle, minor concern.
\n– Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es (Brazil): knee, minor concern.
\n– Declan Rice (England): discomfort, minor concern.
\n– Bukayo Saka (England): discomfort, minor concern.<\/p>\n
The volume of withdrawals has prompted commentary about the balance between club and country, with comparisons drawn to past debates over player availability and manager influence. Tuchel sought to counter any suggestion the players wanted to stay at the expense of their long-term fitness. \u201c[Rice and Saka] had a medical assessment,\u201d the Three Lions boss said. \u201cThey wanted desperately to play\u2014to just get the narrative straight\u2014wanted desperately to be involved. But it just made no sense to take this risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it would have been maybe the last game of the season, we would have kept them and tried everything, but in this moment of the season, it did not make sense. The risk for making it worse was just way too big. They were both in discomfort, clearly in discomfort, when we did the medical assessment. So it made absolutely no sense to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal saw several internationals return early with injuries, and Tuchel emphasised medical caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[947,826,1066],"class_list":["post-10213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-ankle-injury","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10213","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=10213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}