Well the first round of international games are over and we will have to do it all again in midweek, but so far so good as we have not picked up any new injuries yet (touch wood!). All the latest injury news concerns events that happened in England though, and it appears that both Matthieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta are both going to be fit to face Watford next weekend.
Laurent Koscielny is also improving, and though unlikely to be ready for the Watford game, he is aiming to be back in the squad to face Bayern Munich. My main worry though is the fact that Alexis Sanchez left the field against Man United and should really have rested it for a week or so, but instead he has had to travel to the other side of the world and has already played the full 90 minutes (and scored) in Chile’s 2-0 win over Brazil.
His boss Jorge Sampaoli admitted that he taken a risk by playing Sanchez so quickly. “Alexis also arrived not at his top of form, with pain in the adductor,” he said. “He couldn’t play at 100% but we thought that for us him not playing was to give too much advantage to our rivals because his presence in our team makes things difficult for our opponents.”
I know that Sampaoli can only concentrate on winning with Chile and will have no interest in Alexis’ fitness when he returns to Arsenal, but if he insists on playing him against Peru on Tuesday as well, then Sanchez could be in real danger of aggravating his groin before returning to London.
Fingers crossed everyone!