With the Interlull tedium now fully enveloping us all, as I was on my morning run, I was thinking about “what are the best possible outcomes for The Arsenal for this upcoming international break/weekend?”

I have concluded that the following would be rather nice:

Calafiori’s legs don’t implode

Last season it felt like every time Riccardo went away with the Italian national team, something in his lower limbs went pop. We knew when we signed him that he had a history of injury problems and, if my memory serves me correctly, he even missed the start of the season for us. Then when he went away in September he picked up a leg injury which kept him out for a few weeks, followed by a similar injury at the beginning of this calendar year. I would verily much like it if – given his superb form for us so far this season – he has zero problems and comes back in one piece.

I’ll be honest, at the end of last season, I wondered whether we’d got ourselves another Tomiyasu and the only thing that tempered my frustration (not with him, the situation) was that MLS had broken through. I fully expected Calafiori to become a little bit of a Debuchy/Bellerin situation, but that just goes to show you how – as the kids say – “I don’t know ball”. He’s looked fit, he’s looked strong, he’s not getting done by tricky wingers as much, but I think that’s probably due to the fact that Gabriel is an absolute monster and plays two positions in our defence, but also that Calafiori seems to enjoy playing as a left eight more in games. Zinchenko liked to roam forward, but he didn’t find himself in the same positions as Calafiori and once again we find that left back role re-invented with his return to form and fitness.

Come back to us Riccy…

Timber gets splinters

I think Jurrien Timber might be one of our best players right now. He’s certainly one of our most in form players, so when I was reading that his minutes were limited for The Netherlands in the September international break, I was delighted. Yes please guys, let’s have Jurrien collect some splinters on the bench, because this is a guy who has already suffered an ACL in his career with us so far and last season admitted that he was basically playing injured for the closing stages of it. We have Ben White – also not called up to the international team, which is nice for us if not for him – ready and waiting, so we have the required cover, but having Timber fit and ready to play against Fulham needs to be the priority and if that means that we see him warm the Dutch bench and get some sub minutes at best, I am 100% on board with it.

Rice and Saka have managed minutes

Declan looked uncomfortable against West Ham just before he came off and when he picked up that knock at the weekend it was right in front of me by the corner flag. You could see straight away he wasn’t happy and thankfully, unlike Odegaard, he was hooked pretty rapidly afterwards. However, unlike Chelsea players, Arsenal players report for duty and perhaps the fact Declan has reported for duty should be seen as a good sign. I still want to see Tuchel go easy on him though. Arteta spoke in the press conference about the good relationship that he has with Tuchel, about how they talk a lot and my hope is that they’ve had another chat about our England boys. But predominantly I’m looking at Rice because of his knock, as well as Saka too. Bukayo has only recently returned from injury, we could all see how Arteta has been building up his minutes, so my hope is that Tuchel doesn’t go full Southgate and just slap him on for two sets of 90s over the next few days. Arsenal wouldn’t do that, so why should England?

I think Tuchel is a more pragmatic and modern manager than Southgate and I think he’ll recognise that shocing Saka on for maximum minutes right now won’t do the player, or England, any good. Let alone The Arsenal.

Some positive Odegaard medical news

All we’ve had so far is that Odegaard has picked up a medial ligament injury. Arsenal haven’t diagnosed the ‘grade’ of it, which means it could be anything from a week to 12 weeks, but I’m sure that the roving reporters at The Athletic will get a scoop at some stage over the next few days. And when that happens, I just hope that the news is that the knock isn’t as bad as we’d feared. Havertz, Madueke, Saka, Odegaard (twice already) – we’ve already had our fair share of “it’s not good news” so far already – let’s have some positive news for a change, shall we?

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And that’s all I want. That’s not too much to ask for, is it? I mean, obviously I want all the other players on international duty to come back with a clean bill of health, but given we already seem to lose footballers in every single Premier League game this season, it would be nice if the international break could not follow on the start of season form in that regard, eh?

Catch you all tomorrow.