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Morning.
The early reporting on Martin Odegaard’s harm suggests he’ll miss the North London derby and subsequent week’s journey to Man Metropolis. The Norwegian staff physician, Ole Sand, stated:
What we now have up to now obtained from the MRI examination in London is that there’s most likely no fracture within the ankle. It’s at all times a bit troublesome to interpret an MRI scan when you may have had an previous harm, however Arsenal are nearly sure there isn’t any breach, however this will nonetheless take a while.
None of that is stunning. It will have been a large shock if he have been accessible, so affirmation of his absence is, whereas disheartening, not out of the blue or something like that. He’ll additionally miss our first Champions League sport, towards Atalanta on Thursday – btw, how good of the schedule to present us a Thursday sport once we’re going to the Etihad on Sunday. Cheers for that.
The timeframe of Odegaard’s harm offers Mikel Arteta lots to consider. Clearly he’ll have been contemplating what to do with out Declan Rice for Sunday, however that’s a one sport suspension – you discover one thing you suppose will work within the very short-term. In terms of the absence of the captain and the primary playmaker, it’s considerably completely different when you need to discover a answer for an prolonged time period. It’s conceivable that Odegaard could miss 7 games earlier than we see him once more, and that necessitates way more than a sticking plaster answer.
My suspicion is that we’ll see one thing extra tactical than merely a one for one substitute in that place. I may very well be unsuitable, however the closest participant we now have stylistically to Odegaard is Ethan Nwaneri. There is part of me that may love him to get the nod, and to get a run of video games to showcase his expertise and potential. We all know that Odegaard has been mentoring him behind the scenes, however I can’t think about the plan would ever have been for him to be required this early within the season, for this lengthy, and with video games of this magnitude to deal with.
He’s simply 17, and whereas the comparisons are apparent – not least due to their left-footedness – he’s nonetheless fairly inexperienced, and we all know from the previous that Arteta is reluctant to ask an excessive amount of of gamers earlier than he thinks they’re prepared. He would possibly effectively take into account Nwaneri prepared, we’ll discover out sooner or later, but it surely wouldn’t be a giant shock if he was reluctant to ask a participant of that age to shoulder such a giant burden. Even when he did, I don’t suppose he and Odegaard are like for like when it comes to how they play.
The skipper is extra artistic on the ball, the person who leads the press, and appears to chop groups open with the precision and deftness of his passing. From what we’ve seen of Nwaneri, he has a few of that, however appears way more like a ball-carrier, a participant who could make issues occur in a extra direct method. The pattern measurement is small, so I don’t wish to make direct comparisons with gamers of the previous, however the level is that if we do swap Odegaard for Nwaneri, it can possible require some change in the best way we play.
Different options I’ve seen proffered embody going to a double-pivot, which might be one thing to consider when Rice returns, however a Thomas Partey/Jorginho duo would go away me fairly uneasy going into Sunday’s sport. The supervisor additionally has Oleksandr Zinchenko as an possibility for Odegaard’s place, however has by no means appeared eager on utilizing him in midfield. There’s additionally a part of me that wonders if, given this would possibly effectively be classed as a type of emergency, you can take into consideration Bukayo Saka there, with Gabriel Martinelli on the best hand facet of the assault.
That might be an actual shift, however in case you’re searching for any person with the expertise and soccer intelligence to do a brand new job, there’s no query in my thoughts that Saka has that in his locker. I’ve talked earlier than about how I feel he might simply play the ‘left 8’ place, perhaps that’s one thing Arteta can be excited about now. After all it’s not excellent to take a participant who is among the finest on the earth in his place and transfer him elsewhere, however this isn’t an extraordinary state of affairs we’re dealing with right here.
One of many issues we’ve spoken about usually relating to our current recruitment is each the flexibility and intelligence of the gamers we signal. These are issues we’re going to must lean into closely within the interval forward. Little question Arteta and his teaching workers can be having conversations about how finest to manage with out Odegaard, and whereas we as followers will view it with apparent and comprehensible disappointment, he has to current this to his gamers as a problem they should overcome. There’s no level crying about it, there are nonetheless video games to win and factors to play for.
Possibly we’ll get some concept of his plans at tomorrow’s press convention. My intestine feeling is that he’ll play his playing cards nearer to his chest than ever earlier than, however let’s see. Proper, I’ll depart it there for now. Again tomorrow with extra right here and a model new Arsecast.
Till then.
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