So here we are folks – we’re now immersed deep into the mire that is the September international break, with players now away with their national teams and Arsenal’s doing all kind of rain dances, prayers and voodoo witchcraft tricks in the hope that we get them all back in one piece. We’ve already suffered a bunch of injuries, let’s have Liverpool take this one this international break, eh?

We know that Big Bill Saliba pulled out of the French squad, which will be a concern for Forest in a week’s time, but what about the others? Who has made it out unscathed so far?

Viktor Gyokeres

Given Kai is out for the foreseeable future, we really could do without this guy going down, but the good news is that he appears to have got through their game away to Slovenia unscathed. He started as the centre forward for the Swedes and I watched some highlights of his performance yesterday. It was exactly what you expect from him; strong, physical presence, holding up the ball, touches to his teammates, running channels and he even notched an assist with his touch in the box which enabled Ayari to slam the ball in via a deflection. Sweden drew 2-2 but whilst he won’t love that, we will all take it that he’s got another 90 under his belt and I guess given that a lot of us have talked about him needing to get up to speed with his fitness for a couple of weeks now, this is a positive step for Big Vik and hopefully gives him a little extra juice in the tank for when he returns to England to face up to Forest. He just needs to get through Monday night’s game against Kosovo unscathed.

Riccardo Calafiori

Is still alive! He is the one I think most of us have the biggest worry about, not least because on two separate occasions last season he went down on international break. I think it was the October one last season, then there was one in the new year in which he picked up a knock, but last night he made it through 90 minutes with Italy at home to Estonia and by all accounts had a good game. A full 90 under his belt, he created a couple of chances, had three clearances, three recoveries and one interception. By the sounds of it from those who watched, he was one of Italy’s best players and that’s great to hear. See Bik Vik requirements for what we need from Ricci on Monday night away to Israel.

Jurrien Timber

Nercifully for us, Jurrien Timber was an unused substitute against Poland on Thursday and and my hope is that we have the same when the Dutch go to Lithuania tomorrow. Let’s have Timber back and safe by Monday evening and I think we’ll all be happier Gooners.

Piero Hincapie

Our newest edition also got a full 90 for Ecuador and when you look at the numbers is looks like an impressive display. An 85% pass completion rate (he had the most passes of any player), he won all his ground duels, he had four recoveries of the ball, won both of his tackles, had a couple of interceptions and block in there for good measure. You can see why Mikel Arteta was so enthused about getting this guy, he is a battler and a duel monster and I think he’s going to get his fair share of minutes this season for The Arsenal. Especially if our injury luck continues this season. Go on Piero, son!

Martin Odegaard

It’s funny because you want these players to play barely any minutes in these games, but when you don’t watch certain matches and see they come off quite early, you naturally have a moment in which you go “oh FFS, what’s wrong now?” I just had that with Martin seeing that he only played 45 but, given that it’s clearly a halftime sub, it was a friendly and news is filtering through that his – as well as Haaland and others – were planned halftime subs and that hopefully means all is good for the skipper. We need him and we need him fully fit please. They play on Tuesday in a game that matters to them though, which is at home to Moldova, so I suspect he’ll be playing a full 90 in that one. So fingers crossed what we get is a clean bill of health come Wednesday morning. We saw in the Liverpool game that for certain matches Arteta just isn’t quite sure on doing the straight swap out for Merino and whilst the Spaniard did well, it doesn’t give us the same guile and creativity that Ethan does, so having Odegaard back for Forest is a much.

Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi

Speaking of Spaniard’s, our two regular starters in the Spain team both got minutes, with Zubimendi notching a very impressive pass and assist for one of Spain’s goals against Bulgaria, a game in which the Spaniards absolutely battered them in just about every metric. They won 3-0, but when you see that Bulgaria were at home and had three shots (zero on target) all game to Spain’s 24 shots (12 on target), you can start to see what a one-sided affair that was. Zubi got his assist, played 62 minutes before being replaced by Rodri and after his apparently great performance on the night (he had 82 touches and 92% possession) I wonder if the Spanish boss might be thinking of a changing of the guard on the way where Rodri starts to play second fiddle? Hey, this is a guy who won the Balon D’Or a year or so ago, so he’s still probably going to be the favourite to retain his position, but having just come off of an ACL, at 29, maybe Zubi’s performances can make the Spanish boss think twice about his involvement. A Rodri not playing also means he’s not in as much form, which is also good because I don’t think any Arsenal player wants to see that guy back to his best for City.

As for Mikel Merino, he bagged the third goal for Spain with a header and you can see why he is one of the regulars in that Spanish side. He doesn’t always start, but he will often have an impact, as we saw in the Euro’s last summer. He scores important goals and he bags a fair few for Spain; I wonder if he’s a bit like Danny Welbeck was for them. He was never massively prolific for us, but when he played for England, for a period of time, he always seemed to score. To be fair to Merino he also scored for us last season plenty of times as he filled in at centre forward, but I just get Danny Welbeck vibes from is proficiency for the national team.

The rest…

Gabriel Martinelli got a start as Brazil beat Chile and that will no doubt give him a much-needed boost as he got 70+ minutes. The Brazilian media apparently said his decision-making as a little questionable, which will come as no surprise to any of us. Big Gabi got through it fine so I think we’re all good there and like Big Vik, it’s probably good for him to get another 90 under his belt as he returns to his peak physical fitness. Leo Trossard came on as a sub and given Arteta has said he wasn’t 100% fully fit, the fact he got 25+ minutes has to be seen as a positive. David Raya never made it off the bench so we don’t have to worry about that, but all eyes will be on the flurry of England players that we have in the team who might start tonight. Noni, Eze, Rice, Myles – any of these guys could get the nod and again we just need to pray they don’t pick up anything.

But we must wait. Let’s just cross everything, do every lucky charm superstition you have today (I shall be avoiding three drains on my run later) and hopefully here’s to a clean bill of health come midweek next week.

Laters kids.