Morning all from a very grey and wet Dublin, where the sorry excuse for a summer continues.
I bet they don’t have this kind of weather in Marbella, which is where Arsenal have been doing some pre-season work. Obviously this involves the players who haven’t been involved in European tournaments this summer, whether it’s the Euros or the Copa America, and I thought Martin Odegaard’s comments about that were quite interesting.
From our perspective as fans, it’s good that he, and others like Ben White, Jurrien Timber and Gabriel Jesus, haven’t spent the summer training and playing intensely competitive games, but the player’s mindset is different. The captain says:
I wanted to be in the Euros and I’m disappointed that we didn’t qualify, so I’d prefer to be there but that’s the situation. Rest is always good with the amount of intense games we play and how tough it is to play football at the biggest stage. It’s really demanding so it’s a good thing to get some rest, but I would prefer to be there and play.
The discussion about player welfare, the demands placed on them by club, country and – when it comes to the biggest stars – the associated requirements to be omnipresent as an amalgamation of footballer, human being, and brand – is one that will never end. The genie is out of the bottle, the horse has bolted, when there’s more there is almost never less, and I think we need to just accept the fact that professional football is basically an 11 month a year job. If they get 4 weeks to themselves, they’re the lucky ones, because domestic leagues, European competitions, internationals, pre-season tours and all the rest mean it is now essentially a non-stop profession.
On the Arsecast Extra yesterday we had a question about whether it might be a good idea to delay the return to action of players like Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and William Saliba because of how far they have gone at Euro 2024 (not to mention the extra-time shenanigans…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/07/non-stop/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-07-09 06:24:12
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