{"id":387519,"date":"2025-11-18T12:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T12:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/387519\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T12:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T12:17:11","slug":"arsenal-suffer-triple-injury-scare-in-international-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/387519\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal suffer triple injury scare in international break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">The sooner the international break is over, the happier Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Premier League leaders went into the fortnight boasting one of the meanest defences in Europe but have seen three of their key men involved in injury scares.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Injuries to Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori had already caused alarm before full-back Jurrien Timber joined the list during the Netherlands&#8217; 4-0 thrashing of Lithuania on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Gunners, who host north London rivals Tottenham on Sunday and then Bayern Munich the following Wednesday, had registered a club-record eight consecutive clean sheets across all competitions before their 2-2 draw against Sunderland in their last match before the international break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Brazil defender Gabriel, whose partnership with William Saliba has been one of best defensive pairings in the league for several seasons, has played a major role in their superb start to the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The league leaders have conceded just five goals in 11 games, and the Brazilian has also chipped in with two goals and provides a consistent threat at set-pieces. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So when he became the first Arsenal defender to pick up an injury, alarm bells would have sounded at their London Colney training ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 27-year-old did not travel to France for Brazil&#8217;s friendly against Tunisia on Tuesday after scans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c797pe2v7ydo\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed he sustained a thigh injury<\/a> in Saturday&#8217;s friendly against Senegal, when he was forced off in the second half.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then full-back Calafiori, who has been the left-back in most of their games this season, withdrew from the Italy squad with a hip problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 23-year-old joined up with the team for their World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Norway, but trained alone and did not feature in either match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, it seems there is some good news on this front for Arsenal, with reports suggesting the Gunners are hopeful the Italian will be available for Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Italy boss Gennaro Gattuso said he was pleased with the defender&#8217;s commitment to the Azzurri. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Riccardo joined the national team with a physical problem,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He showed dedication to the shirt and we tried to make him grit his teeth, but we couldn&#8217;t force it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Gunners fans would have been left fearing the worst on Monday when Timber was injured by a bad tackle during the first half of the Netherlands&#8217; win against Lithuania.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was treated by the physios after appearing to have sustained a knee injury, but pictures subsequently showed a deep cut to his leg, and he played on for another 30 minutes being replaced, again raising hopes he will be available for the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Arsenal are already dealing with various injuries, with forwards Viktor Gyokores, Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke joined by midfielder Martin Odegaard in having missed recent matches, and they will be hoping that their trio of defenders will not be joining them on the sidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sooner the international break is over, the happier Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be. The Premier League&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":387520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-387519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115570661367430785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}