I think we’re going to get to the point in which, despite having stockpiled a billion players over the summer, this squad is soon going to start looking thin. Such is the curse with injuries we are getting, with Odegaard now rumoured to be out until after the next international break in November, that if we start picking up any more we’re going to end up looking threadbare.

On Odegaard, you have to really feel so sorry for him, because these aren’t injuries caused by overplaying. They are impact injuries that are just unlucky. Two shoulder injuries in the same place, then the clash of knees, which is hella harsh on the Norwegian and I don’t know about you but I’m looking at that game against The Scum on 23rd November and really hoping he can make the match day squad for that one. It’s just desperately unlucky. You can say all you want about whether it is the club, the over-use of players, maybe the training, but I think that is speculating on too many variables with not enough knowledge personally. There was a Mikel Arteta pre-match press conference a couple of weeks ago where he opened up about all of the different variables and it was some really fascinating insight, because to me it showed me in to just how much detail the club have been looking at this problem. I think most of us will have suspected that they will try to leave no stone unturned; this is Mikel Arteta and we know he is a details guy, but when you look at the Odegaard case in isolation, it just looks and feels like we have ourselves a guy who seems to have walked over three drains, crossed multiple black cats, picked said cats up and then decided to walk under a row of ladders.

Again, if you’re looking at the positive side of this, it shouldn’t point to an underlying problem like an Abou Diaby, Tomas Rosicky or Thomas Vermaelen. The diagnosis is hopefully that he has to sit this one out without surgery, then can come back after the international break and if I’m in Odegaard’s shoes right now I have a big red-ringed circle around the North London Derby. Let’s hope he can make that.

We’ve also go Kai Havertz, who hasn’t been seen since match week one and Arteta said a couple of week’s back that it will be ‘weeks’ and not ‘months’, which is good. But if he’s expected to return in November (hopefully the beginning) then that’s already one of our key attacking players who will have missed at least a third of the full season as it is. Madueke is the same – expected to return in November and he’s another one where Arteta said “a few weeks” back in September. So if I try to put a ‘glass half full’ hat on (that would be weird. What would a glass half full hat even look like??) and say the beginning of November, then we only have a couple of week’s to navigate after this international break has finished.

And if that can happen, then we have Fulham away, Atletico Madrid at home, Palace at home, Brighton in the League Cup and then probably Burnley away on 1st November. If we’re talking about Kai and Noni looking like they are getting back after those matches, then there’s a little block of games in which I think the Arsenal squad can absorb the impact of the absentees. Arteta has been trying to rotate players to keep them fresh and I think it means games like Atletico Madrid we might see a Merino, for example, whilst you look at Ethan getting minutes and you’d expect he might be in line for a start or two. I suspect it will be Eze this weekend, maybe against Atletico, but perhaps with Palace at home Nwaneri could look at some minutes? Certainly in the League Cup I think given our injuries there will be a desire to see a lot more rotation than perhaps we might have normally done against a Premier League opponent.

And with all of these injuries, I don’t know about you, but I naturally start to look at who played last night and whether there were any issues. It doesn’t sound like it so far, which is a relief, because having questioned whether Trossard and Martinelli might be due for a sale this summer just gone, now they are becoming vital players for us. Leo scored for Belgium last night right at the death against the Welsh and before this international break I thought it was interesting to see him starting in all three of our last Premier League games, as well as the Olympiakos game in the Champions League. So whilst many of us – me included – thought that his game time might be limited and that Martinelli, Madueke and Eze would duke it out for the left wing position with Leo finding his minutes limited, the opposite has actually happened. Trossard played 84 against Man City, 88 against Newcastle, 74 against Olympiakos and then 75 against West Ham. Clearly in that left wing position he does things that Arteta wanted ahead of the other players and with that in mind (and probably also given the travelling that Martinelli is doing for Brazil this week) I wonder if he’ll get another shot in that wide left position on Saturday too?

So for all of the talk of rotation this early in the season, we are starting to see that some players are getting more minutes more frequently than others and if I’m honest, as long as they are delivering, then I’m fine with that. I think Trossard was ok against Newcastle and unlucky not to score by hitting the post. He came off the bench to score against Port Vale and I thought against West Ham he did okay; for Belgium he’s been on the scoresheet and that form makes you wonder if he might yet be counted on once more, with Martinelli being used as an impact runner when the opposition tires. Martinelli himself never got off the bench in the away game in South Korea and at 11.30am today UK time he will be hoping for some minutes against Japan, but if those minutes are managed then I think that’s fine for me. Whatever time he gets afforded on the pitch, however, I think I speak for us all when I say that we just need him and Big Gabi to get another set of pointless friendlies over and done with and get them on the plane back to us.

I think that’s all from me today. I don’t really feel minded to talk about how Big Vik had a sad night as Sweden stunk out the place against Kosovo, neither do I want to look in to the 2-2 France draw with Iceland, as long as we know that Big Bill is fine and he’s heading back to England now to be ready for the visit to the Cottage on Saturday evening.

So I’ll take my leave for another day and I’ll be back with some more thoughts as we start to wind up this international break. Thankfully.