Internationals at any point during a league campaign is never really welcome and having an international break just one week before the league season starts is definitely not the best timing.
Nine of our players are away on International duty for the latest games in the Nations League; Leno, Tierney, Maitland-Niles, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Saka, Nelson, Nketiah and Guendouzi were all called up to their teams.
After the two games are over, the latest that the players should return to Colney is Wednesday 9th September, giving them only 3 days to prepare and be ready for the Fulham game which is a midday kick off on Saturday.
As we have seen on many occasions, internationals can break up the flow of a team, but also help by giving players a break if things aren’t going so well.
I always worry when players get called up but even more so when they are key players, the risk of getting injured is always there. If the games are qualifiers then I am a little less worried but we do tend to have international friendlies quite a lot which for me are pointless.
We know internationals have always been an ever present during seasons and they always will be, and we all know this season is going to be one of the worst because of recovery time and games being played, all because of the Pandemic, and as soon as this season is over, pandemic permitting, a lot of our players I’m sure will again be called up for their respective national teams for the Euro’s.
Let’s hope all of our boys come back fully fit and firing. Because without a fully fit squad we could be looking at the worst possible start. We don’t want a repeat of the return of lockdown happening when we lost players to injury, even if the loss of Leno brought out the best in Martinez.
Moving forward I would love to see international friendlies scrapped during the season. I understand they need to be played if they are working towards competitions. Qualifiers I have no issue on, but if this continues then surely a winter break needs to be enforced or the number of English Premier League games need to be reduced.
What are your thoughts on internationals Gooners, do they help players and club? Or just add to the stress and injury list?
Shenel Osman
Well, there is nothing we can do about it, is there? and we are not the only club in this situation, I would even go as far as saying that we are lucky this time around as we only have Xhaka and Leno still to join the first team.
Xhaka is exceptionally fit and we have Martinez available so I don’t think there is much of an issue here.
Absolutely ridiculous to have international football going on in the week leading upto the start of the league program even more stupid to have them in the middle of a pandemic ,I suppose money talks though .
Let’s be honest who even watches this guff anymore .
Agree 100%.