Arsenal captain Martin \u00d8degaard has been included in Norway\u2019s squad for September\u2019s World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and the friendly against Finland. The selection offers a measure of optimism for Arsenal and Norway, even as questions about his fitness remain.<\/p>\n
A recent report suggested \u00d8degaard might still be in contention to face Liverpool on Aug. 31, with Norway staff operating on the basis that he could be fit for internationals in the first half of September. The captain was replaced by Ethan Nwaneri during the match against Leeds, and his status ahead of the Liverpool trip is being closely monitored by Arsenal medical staff.<\/p>\n
If \u00d8degaard is not cleared for the encounter at Anfield, Arsenal supporters may expect to see Eberechi Eze involved. Eze was not available to play last weekend, but he is seen as a player who could provide flair and creativity, operating in front of the more orthodox midfield pairing of Declan Rice and Mart\u00edn Zubimendi.<\/p>\n
Norway manager St\u00e5le Solbakken remained non-committal after naming his squad. \u201cI don\u2019t have any more details to give you,\u201d he shrugged. \u201cI actually know just as much as you do. I\u2019ve spoken to Martin, and of course, he has hope too. But it\u2019s an injury that hurts a lot right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just talked about the situation after the game,\u201d Solbakken continued. \u201cHe was in pain. He\u2019s in Arsenal\u2019s hands, and they have a game on Sunday. We can\u2019t do anything from here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00d8degaard missed 12 games in the early weeks of last season with an ankle injury. He was omitted from Norway\u2019s squad for the November international break but returned to play in two Arsenal fixtures before travelling to Oslo for assessment by Norway\u2019s medical staff. He then returned to London after saying he needed to \u201clisten\u201d to his body.<\/p>\n
Arsenal will manage his recovery with both the club schedule and upcoming internationals in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Odegaard named in Norway squad as Arsenal monitor his fitness ahead of the Liverpool match onAug31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[253,414,677,607],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-declan-rice","tag-eberechi-eze","tag-ethan-nwaneri","tag-martin-odegaard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","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=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}