Wayne Bridge makes Declan Rice injury claim and sends title warning to Arsenal | Football

Wayne Bridge believes Arsenal have ‘put more pressure on themselves’ to win the Premier League by welcoming quite a lot of apparently injured players back to the Emirates Stadium throughout the international break.

Mikel Arteta’s side suffered an enormous blow before the international break, failing to win their first major trophy since 2020 by losing to Manchester City within the Carabao Cup final.

The Gunners are still on the verge of a monumental season, nonetheless, as they lead the Premier League title race by nine points and go deep in each the Champions League and FA Cup.

Arteta’s squad starting to feel the affects of an extended and draining season before the international break, with Martin Odegaard and Eberechi Eze missing the Wembley defeat to Man City.

Most of Arsenal’s squad was called up by their countries for the March international break but ten players pulled out of games citing various injury issues.

Gabriel Magalhaes, William Saliba, Jurrien Timber, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke, Piero Hincapie, Leandro Trossard and Martin Zubimendi all made premature returns to north London.

In contrast, just one player from Manchester City and Liverpool returned from their international duty early.

Sir Alex Ferguson would often tactically remove his players from international motion to preserve them for Manchester United’s various assignments.

Ex-England defender Bridge believes Arteta has done the identical for Arsenal, claiming ‘we all know those players are alright’.

Former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand praised Arteta for giving his players more rest ahead of the business end of the season but Bridge believes it has ‘put more pressure’ on the title favourites.

‘ the worst thing about it? I feel like they’ve put more pressure on themselves now,’ he said on The Dressing Room podcast.

‘I believe the league is finished but in the event that they throw it away after doing that, it looks even worse.

‘Their next [Premier League] game is against Bournemouth, right? They’ve upset Arsenal just a few times. I don’t think it’s going to occur but they’ve upset them just a few times.

‘We all know those players are alright, we all know they’re alright.’

Carlton Cole added: ‘What’s occurring with Arsenal with all of the players leaving international duty? Is that allowed?

‘We’d like to deal with this. Are those players out for the season now? It makes me sick actually. What’s the possibilities of all of them being okay for the following game?’

Joe Cole, meanwhile, says he ‘understands’ why Arsenal would wish to protect their players but imagine they went too far throughout the March international break.

‘Everyone seems to be injured… come on, if you’re going to do a move like this, don’t strong it,’ he said.

‘How lots of them do we predict are actually injured? It’ll be a good calf, a sore back, all of these conversations happen.

‘Players are consistently carrying a knock and a whole lot of these players know they’re going to the World Cup.

‘I understand it because there’s so many vital games coming up and you may have a niggle – but you can play.

‘Alex Ferguson used to do this but I don’t think it happened at Chelsea, it never happened to me and I don’t remember it happening with John [Terry] or Frank [Lampard].

‘All those fans at Wembley wish to see the England team not principally an England B team.’

Thomas Tuchel’s England underwhelmed in the ultimate international break before the World Cup, losing 1-0 to Japan following a 1-1 draw with Uruguay.

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