International round up
Mohamed Elneny and Takehiro Tomiyasu are away on international duty with their respective countries at the moment, completing in The Africa Cup Of Nations in West Africa and The Asian Cup in Qatar. Both of their teams have played their first matches last week, with Japan coming away 4-2 after a thrilling match, but Arsenal’s Tomiyasu wasn’t in the match day squad and Egypt faced Mozambique and walked away in a stale mate at 2-2 in the first round of games.
Elneny’s Egypt faced off again last night against Ghana in what was another action-packed game, Egypt walking away with a point after scoring a late goal to equalise after West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus was on fire, scoring a brace. Liverpool and Egypt’s star Mohamed Salah was seen clutching at his hamstring and was forced to come off early leaving Egypt looking a bit lost, but they managed to get back into the game in the late stages.
Elneny started and played almost 70 minutes of football in the middle of the pitch, he had a really good game while on the pitch and was a huge contributor into the first goal Egypt scored to equalise and was breaking the lines in a well drilled Ghana side. Personally, I wouldn’t have taken him off so early as he was making a big impact in the middle of the pitch. Having 40 touches throughout the game and walked away with 35/37 (95%) accurate passes. He won the ball back when needed and had a good run.
Egypt have now drawn both games but still sit 2nd in Group B on 2 points, with Cape Verde just above them on three who they play in the next game of the group stages. It’s a must-win for Egypt if they want to top the group and go into the next round.
Takehiro Tomiyasu started full team training with Japan last week and has been pushing himself to be ready for today’s match against Iraq. Although he wasn’t named in the Japanese squad in their win over Vietnam, he is expected to be back against Iraq. Tomiyasu has obviously been recovering from an injury and the Japanese squad have opted to take it easy with him so he’s hopefully now 100% fit and ready to go.
Japan will face off against Iraq which on paper they should easily be winning, with the chance to automatically qualify with a win, Japan will be ready and raring to go. Hope Arsenal fans get to see Tomiyasu get some minutes and get the win for his country.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
Daisy Mae
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