Odegaard’s injury a hammer blow as football continues to ignore player welfare

Morning.

The only place to start this morning is the injury suffered by Martin Odegaard during Norway’s 2-1 win over Austria. The captain’s foot got caught in a challenge, and if you watch the video, you can see his ankle twist right underneath him, before snapping back.

Ødegaard off with an nasty injury. Screaming in pain. Doesn’t look good at all.

Hate internationals with a passion 🤬🤬pic.twitter.com/SfRgnRoEAn

— 🇳🇴 kimmoFC (@kimmoFC) September 9, 2024

He clearly knew it was a bad one, and came off after some treatment. Right now, we have nothing much to go on because it’s still so soon after the injury. It can take a day or two to get the information we need, but it didn’t look good at all, and if he got away without damaging his ankle ligaments to some extent I would absolutely amazed. I’d also be astonished if he were available for Sunday’s North London derby, adding to Mikel Arteta’s midfield headache.

Norway boss, Stale Solbakken, rather blithely said on TV afterwards:

We know it was an ankle sprain. With luck it can turn out OK, if the ligaments aren’t torn, but I’m not really sure Arteta will call me tonight to praise me.

Since Declan Rice’s red card against Brighton the discussion has been about how we configure the team without him, but the idea that we’ll likely have to go there without him and Odegaard seems pretty cruel. There’s no Fabio Vieira after his loan to Porto was sanctioned, Mikel Merino is injured after his unfortunate collision in training, and options are limited. Step forward Ethan Nwaneri, I guess – when you look at the squad and who could possibly come in and do something similar to what the captain does, he’s the obvious choice. It’s a lot to ask of a 17 year old though, and no doubt the midfield discussion will continue throughout the week.

I’ve seen a lot of talk about how Arsenal should never have allowed Odegaard to go away with Norway, having taken a heavy kick in the Brighton…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/09/odegaards-injury-a-hammer-blow-as-football-continues-to-ignore-player-welfare/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-09-10 07:11:56

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