S Poddar
Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard will reportedly be sidelined for several weeks after he sustained an ankle injury while playing for Norway. Ødegaard was forced off the pitch in pain during Norway’s victory over Austria on Friday night, after a challenge by Christoph Baumgartner was allowed to go unpunished. The Gunners’ skipper, limping and with the help of crutches, was back to Arsenal to further evaluate the issue. Reports from the Norwegian Football Association say that Ødegaard has suffered a serious ankle injury.
Dansk TV2 reports that although initial scans have cleared Ødegaard of a fracture, he is nevertheless expected to be out of action for at least three weeks. That will rule him out of important matches coming up, including the north London derby at Tottenham next month and the visit to Manchester City on September 22. Further treatment will be conducted by Arsenal’s medical staff once the bruising has settled.
Norwegian team doctor Ola Sand has suggested that even though the MRI scan did not reveal any fracture, such kinds of injury generally take around three weeks to get recovered. He said, “The MRI examination in London suggests that there is probably no fracture, but the interpretation can be difficult when it comes to previous injuries. Arsenal is hopeful it’s not a break, though the recovery will take time whichever way.
The absence further deepens Arsenal’s growing list of midfield issues. Mikel Arteta will be without several key players on Sunday against Tottenham. The new signing Mikel Merino might take around two months due to a fracture in one of his shoulders, and Declan Rice is on suspension, given the red card against Brighton.
Without Ødegaard, Jorginho – who signed new terms recently but is yet to feature this season – could come into the team and join Thomas Partey from the start. Arteta could also move centre-half Jurriën Timber into midfield, Oleksandr Zinchenko to the left side of central midfield or even Kai Havertz as a deep-lying forward. There is also the added bonus of Riccardo Calafiori, forced to return early from his Italy squad following a collision with France’s Ousmane Dembélé, expected to be fit for the Tottenham match.
Bizarrely, Arsenal will not wear their traditional home strip for the game. Because of a ruling from Professional Game Match Officials Ltd. – that their home kit features “too much white” – they will don their black away strip in the game. Tottenham will wear alternative colors on the return fixture in February.
The independent key match incidents panel of the Premier League have upheld the decision of referee Chris Kavanagh in sending off Declan Rice against Brighton for a second yellow card for holding onto the ball to delay the restart of play. This has been unanimously supported by the panel.
