By Alfie Cairns Culshaw (Chief Editor)
Given the World Cup break commences after this weekend and the World Cup itself kicks off just a week later, I thought today would be a good opportunity to look at how this break will affect Arsenal and what Arsenal will be doing during it. A look at what the players who aren't going to Qatar will be doing and of the players who are going, who will actually be playing minutes and when they are likely to return to the Arsenal group.
During the tournament itself, we'll have plenty of content surrounding those who are there on this site, so watch out for that.
According to David Ornstein of The Athletic, the members of Arsenal's squad not travelling to the Middle East immediately after Saturday's encounter with Wolves at Molineux will be granted 10 days of holiday. This will be a good opportunity to rest and reset ahead of what will be a gruelling second half of the season.
Arsenal will then return to training on Wednesday 23rd November (just three days into the international tournament) and will fly out to Dubai for a warm weather training camp on 4th December. The senior players expected to be on that plane will be:
Karl Hein
Cedric Soares
Rob Holding
Gabriel Magalhaes
Kieran Tierney
Oleksandr Zinchenko
Mohamed Elneny
Sambi Lokonga
Martin Odegaard
Fabio Vieira
Reiss Nelson
Marquinhos
Emile Smith Rowe (injury recovery permitted)
Eddie Nketiah
As you can see, a sizeable portion of our squad will be in Dubai from the very start, while Mikel Arteta will likely take a number of academy players to bulk up training. Given the supposed success of previous trips to this part of the world, and the positive impact it has had culturally and for the players fitness', I'm optimistic that this will be a productive use of the break.
At the time of writing (Wednesday 9th), only Granit Xhaka, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli have received definite call-ups for their respective nations. I'm anticipating France's World Cup squad announcement at any moment and that William Saliba will be named in Didier Deschamps' 26-man entourage.
Gareth Southgate is set to name his England squad tomorrow (Thursday 10th) and there's a good chance you'll know who is in it when you're reading this. My assertion would be that Aaron Ramsdale and Bukayo Saka are certainly involved, whilst Ben White is likely to be- and should be if Southgate isn't a lunatic.
Ghana are yet to name their squad, but Thomas Partey will be in it, while Matt Turner will be included in Gregg Berhalter's United States ensemble. This means we're likely to have ten first team players travelling to Qatar before 20th November:
Aaron Ramsdale
Matt Turner
Takehiro Tomiyasu
Ben White (presumably)
William Saliba
Thomas Partey
Granit Xhaka
Bukayo Saka
Gabriel Martinelli
Gabriel Jesus
Arsenal strategically picked Dubai for their warm-weather training so that when players are eliminated from the tournament, they don't have to travel half way across the world to join back up with the squad. Instead, a quick hour and ten minute flight separates Doha and the UAE's most populous city.
So when are our World Cup representatives likely to join up with the group? Turner, who is expected to start in between the sticks for the US, could be the first back and his stay in Qatar could be cut short five days prior to Arsenal even flying to Dubai on 29th November. That is, of course, if the US fail to get out of their group consisting of England, Wales and Iran. There's a good chance the Yanks do proceed beyond the group stage, although you wouldn't expect them to go deep into the competition. Regardless, Turner will not be too high up Arteta's list of players he's desperate to get back as soon as possible.
More likely, Takehiro Tomiyasu will be the first to join Arteta and the boys in Dubai. The Japanese international's nation faces a difficult task in getting out of a group that contains previous World champions Spain and Germany. If the Samurai Blue fail to qualify for the knockout stages, Tomiyasu will play his final game of the tournament on 1st December and will likely hang around in the Middle East until joining up with the squad when they fly out on 4th December.
Thomas Partey could join Tomiyasu and the squad for the start of the warm-weather training if his Black Stars side fail to get out of a group consisting of Portugal, Uruguay and Senegal. It's not impossible Ghana repeat their heroics of the 2010 World Cup and get well beyond the group stage, but it appears unlikely. Partey could well play his final game of the tournament on 2nd December.
Both Partey and Tomiyasu play integral roles for their nations and are likely to play the bulk of the minutes available to them in Qatar, which means three games in eight days, so both are likely to be carefully nursed back into training upon their return.
Granit Xhaka will captain a Switzerland side (and probably play every minute) tipped to proceed beyond the group stage. The Swiss face Brazil, Serbia and Cameroon in the initial stage of the competition and have progressed past this point in three of the last four World Cups. If things go how they're expected to on paper (which of course rarely happens throughout an entire tournament), then Murat Yakin's side will likely get knocked out in the round of 16. This would mean Xhaka's World Cup would be over by 6th December, and he would join the Dubai training camp a day later.
For the other six players at the tournament, there is a lot less clarity. England, France and Brazil are expected to go deep into the competition (at least the Quarter-Finals), so are likely to join up with the squad in Dubai at later dates. If they go at that Quarter-Final stage, they'll return on 10th-11th, or if they reach the Semi-Finals, the 18th-19th (because of the 3rd-place play-off).
Of course, predicting when they'll return is slightly futile because anything can happen in football, particularly with the inherent randomness of knockout football.
Of those six that are expected to go far, there may only be three players who play prominent roles for their nations. The French media have reported that Saliba will start for Les Blues as part of a back three, meaning our generational centre-back is likely to have a busy time in Qatar. Bukayo Saka may not start every game for the Three Lions, but he'll likely get plenty of minutes. Similarly to Saka, Gabriel Jesus is expected to be the first reserve for Brazil's front three of Neymar, Vinicius and Raphinha, meaning he'll get plenty of action.
Meanwhile, Ramsdale is unlikely to play a single minute in the tournament, with Southgate favouring Jordan Pickford, while White (if he goes) and Martinelli are likely to spend a lot of time on the bench. Looking at this holistically, talk of an Arsenal collapse in the second part of the season due to the immense physical impact the World Cup will have on our squad looks very premature.
Managing Jesus, Saka and Saliba carefully when they return will be key, but the rest of those partaking in the World's biggest sporting event should be able to slot back in pretty seamlessly, as long as they come through unscathed.
The players in Dubai won't just be rotting away with no football to keep them match sharp. Arsenal will face Lyon in an exhibition match on 8th December, with a team that could look something like this:
Hein, Cedric, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney, Elneny, Zinchenko, Odegaard, Vieira, Nketiah, Nelson.
They will then face AC Milan on 13th December, with the addition of the initial World Cup dropouts (potentially Tomiyasu, Partey and Turner). The following day, the ten-day hiatus in the Middle East will come to an end as Arteta's men travel back to London Colney.
According to David Ornstein, a home friendly on 17th December against a Spanish side is being discussed as the third mid-season friendly to keep our players fit and firing. By that point, we could have almost our entire squad back and available for selection. Only players that have reached the semi-final stage won't be in contention.
Tonight, Arsenal face Brighton in the third round of the EFl Cup, and if you're reading this I'd suspect you are aware of the outcome of this match. If Arsenal have defeated the Seagulls, our season will resume either on the 20th or 21st, just a few days after the home friendly against a Spanish side, perhaps putting this friendly in doubt.
While a League Cup fourth round fixture may be a distraction to our preparations for the resumption of our campaign, a competitive fixture to ease our players who haven't played competitively for a month back in may be positive. Regardless, it'll likely be a heavily rested side as we await our league resumption on Boxing Day as we host West Ham.
Then, we can crack back on with our Premier League title charge.
Kommentarer