Arsenal are prone to be sweating on the fitness of Martin Odegaard ahead of Saturday’s crucial Premier League clash against Bournemouth on Saturday.
The Arsenal skipper only made his comeback from his latest fitness setback against Southampton in last weekend’s FA Cup defeat.
Odegaard began Tuesday’s win against Sporting Lisbon within the Champions League but was taken off with 20 minutes remaining in apparent discomfort and replaced by eventual matchwinner Kai Havertz.
The 27-year-old was amongst a bunch of players who weren’t spotted in first team training ahead of Saturday’s clash against the Cherries in a fixture that can provide the Gunners with a probability to increase their lead at the highest of the table to 12 points, albeit having played two games greater than Manchester City who face Chelsea on Sunday.
There was no sign either of Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber and Piero Hincapie, who all missed the last two games, while Riccardo Calafiori was also absent.
There was, nevertheless, more promising news in the form of Eberechi Eze’s recovery from the calf injury that ruled has ruled him out of motion for club and country because the starring role he played in Arsenal’s Champions League last 16 second leg win over Bayer Leverkusen last month.
After initially declaring himself fit after the knock he picked up against the Bundesliga side, Eze was forced to take a seat out the Wembley final and missed England’s friendlies against Uruguay and Japan.
Arsenal feared the summer signing from Crystal Palace may very well be out of motion for as much as six weeks, but his presence in training on Thursday afternoon has come as a welcome relief.
Whatever the personnel available, Mikel Arteta’s side will head into this weekend’s game in a much better state of mind following the boost provided by Havertz’s crucial late winner in Lisbon.
Speaking on the importance of that morale-boosting victory, Arteta said: ‘It was an enormous night, an enormous moment within the season. Especially where we’re coming from. I believe we had a degree to prove.
‘And yesterday I talked about identity and the things that I desired to see on that pitch. It definitely happened. Definitely there was a shift there. After which we played our opponent. It’s very tricky, very difficult to play.
‘That’s the explanation why they won 17 games in a row here. They haven’t lost for a protracted, very long time and really needed to earn it. We had moments of real dominance with numerous situations in and across the box without creating enough threat sometimes.
‘Lacking to be a bit crispier, the movement a bit sharper, the ultimate ball. But we took the sport where we wanted. But after saying that, we knew as well that it’s a team extremely dangerous once they have space to run they usually have two situations where David needed to intervene in a superb way.
‘After which, again, the story of the season, the finish is coming when crucial a part of the sport is about to occur after which make the difference for us to go and win it.’
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