Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard has not started any matches for them since the end of last month. He has suffered consecutive injury issues and has been unable to play. However, the nature of his injury is unspecified and even his recovery could take some time. As per reports, the Premier League team’s coach Mikel Arteta said Odegaard might not be back till the end of the month after the international break. It’s still unclear whether he will be participating in the Euro qualifiers matches for Norway or not.
Arsenal played their last Premier League match before the international break against Burnley. They won the match by a 3-1 margin with goals from Leandro Trossard, William Saliba, and Oleksandr Zinchenko. Coach Mikel Arteta talked about Odegaard and his possible return date in the post-match press conference.
He said, “I don’t know. I’m going to have a meeting now with the medical department to understand everybody’s situation and I think he is going to be back after the International break but I don’t know exactly what the decision is and the communication at the moment.”
The last match Odegaard started in was their Champions League win against Sevilla on the road last month. He missed their next match in the Premier League which was a 5-0 thrashing of Sheffield United.
It was revealed that the Arsenal captain missed that match due to a hip issue. He then returned as a substitute in their next match which was a Carabao Cup defeat to West Ham United. Since then, Odegaard has missed 3 matches for the Gunners so far in all competitions.
News came from the club that Odegaard missed at least two of those matches due to an unspecified injury sustained during training. However, the injury doesn’t seem to be of long-term concern.
As per the coach, the captain should be back to his old self after the end of the international break. He should be able to take to the field again at the end of this month when Arsenal go up against Brentford in the Premier League and then Lens in the Champions League.
In the meantime, Odegaard has been called up for national duties with Norway for their friendly and Euro qualifiers matches this month. It’s not yet confirmed whether he will be able to play the matches or not. However, he might travel with the team.
Norway will face Faroe Islands in a friendly match on November 16. They will next face Scotland in the Euro qualifiers on November 20. Both of these matches are inconsequential for the Norway team who are sitting in 3rd place with 10 points in Group A of the qualifiers.
The 4th-placed Georgia will not be able to climb over Norway as they have a superior head-to-head record. Norway also can’t climb higher as they are 5 points behind 2nd-placed Scotland. They can only qualify for the Euro 2024 finals through play-offs.
For that, Norway will need to depend on Serbia automatically qualifying from Group G. In this situation, Norway head coach Stale Solbakken could choose to experiment with his team. If Odegaard is not fully fit, the coach could decide to let him go.
