Noni Madueke was forced off England\u2019s 1\u20131 draw with Uruguay on Friday with his knee supported in a brace after limping out in the first half. There were early concerns he might have suffered a head injury in the initial tumble; at one point he was seen holding his jaw. Those fears gave way to attention on his knee as the Arsenal forward moved through the mixed zone with heavy support on the joint.<\/p>\n
England boss Thomas Tuchel had no update on Madueke after the game, instead confirming the winger would need further tests to determine the severity of the issue. He is expected to withdraw from the squad shortly.<\/p>\n
Madueke\u2019s absence, even temporarily, strains a rotation plan Mikel Arteta set out to build last summer. The winger arrived from Chelsea to provide cover for Bukayo Saka and to help create the depth required to rotate a title-challenging squad. Madueke produced a hot start while Saka was sidelined through injury, but has largely occupied a reserve role this season since his international teammate\u2019s return. He has made 12 Premier League starts so far, contributing two goals and an assist.<\/p>\n
There have been calls for Madueke to receive a larger role, particularly as Saka has fallen below the expectations placed on him this season, but Arteta has continued to persist with Saka to date. The inability to rotate between the two wide players would damage Arteta\u2019s vision for squad depth, a risk compounded by existing injury concerns across Arsenal\u2019s forward options.<\/p>\n
Leandro Trossard was among those who withdrew from his international squad through injury. If Trossard is not fit when domestic action resumes and Madueke requires time out, Arsenal would be left with only two senior wingers in Saka and Gabriel Martinelli. In that scenario, 16-year-old Max Dowman would become the primary cover on the wing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madueke left England’s 1\u20131 draw with Uruguay in a knee brace; Arsenal’s winger situation is fragile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303,961],"tags":[1312,1359,1376],"class_list":["post-9998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","category-international","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-arsenal-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9998","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=9998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}