Norway boss St\u00e5le Solbakken has admitted he cannot yet say whether Martin \u00d8degaard will be available for Thursday\u2019s match against Wales, leaving Arsenal with an anxious wait over their captain.<\/p>\n
Solbakken\u2019s assessment was cautious rather than alarming, but he made clear that a final call is still pending. \u201cI wish I could say yes, but I can\u2019t say that. I can\u2019t say no either,\u201d Solbakken said, when asked whether \u00d8degaard will play against Wales. \u201cHe will be tested a bit today. If he had been unavailable, he obviously wouldn\u2019t have been here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00d8degaard was back on the grass on Wednesday, though his involvement in the Nations League fixture remains unresolved. His presence in the camp offers some encouragement, but it does not amount to a guarantee that he will feature.<\/p>\n
The midfielder\u2019s fitness history explains why Arsenal supporters are watching developments so closely. During the first international break of 2024, \u00d8degaard suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of 12 matches for Arsenal. He was also affected by a number of other fitness concerns across his 2025\u201326 campaign.<\/p>\n
Even so, he has started the new campaign in strong form and has looked close to his best in the early weeks of the season. That has only heightened the concern around any fresh setback, however minor it may prove to be.<\/p>\n
Arsenal would probably have preferred Norway to release him as a precaution, but his continued stay with the squad suggests there is still a realistic chance he could be passed fit. As Solbakken noted, Norway would not have allowed him back into training if there were no possibility of him being ready to play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Norway are still assessing Martin \u00d8degaard, leaving Arsenal waiting on a Thursday fitness verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1836,242,180],"class_list":["post-21062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062","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=21062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}