Odegaard INJURED On International Duty…

Odegaard INJURED in Norway game only 3 Premier League games into the season! Why are these players playing these games!?

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[danieltaylor]

First I find out James Earl Jones dies and now this. Today sucks.

[osonuga]

I believe this is odegaard’s 3rd injury in a week. Brighton, Norway practice, Norway friendly. Your body has a way of telling you it is breaking down before it does

[bexclue]

*City 18/19:* only LB out the entire season, KDB out for most of the season, huge injury crisis in December, Fernandinho (only real DM) injured for the last few months of the season.
*City in 20/21:* Aguero out for almost entire season, KDB out for a few months.
*City 21/22:* second season in a row with the smallest squad in Europe, playing almost every game, squad completely dead towards the end: Laporte playing with a serious injury, 38yo Fernandinho playing CB, Stones playing FB etc. That's how Real managed to turn against City and that's how the title race got so close - going down 0:2 against West Ham on penultimate match day, going down 0:2 on last match day. Team was finished.
*City 23/24:* KDB injured for over half the season, Haaland injured for several months, Grealish/Ake/Stones all injury-ridden seasons - while not having replaced Gundogan or Mahrez.

Like, if you're going into the season thinking you can win the title _if nothing goes wrong..._ then you're probably not winning the title. Cases like Liverpool 2018-2020 or Arsenal last season are the exception, not the norm. Things go wrong.

edit: also, why cry about England not resting Saka/Rice, when Arsenal isn't resting them either? You _do_ know that the reason those guys only had a few weeks of rest in total is bc _Arsenal chose to play them, _ right? 
It's not like a situation with Rodri where he has literally played his first minutes this season for Spain bc City _was_ resting him (alongside the other Euros finalists). So England can go through in the Nations League without Saka/Rice but Arsenal can't beat Wolves without them? Sounds more like an Arsenal problem than in England problem to me

[Just-Tom]

Iron man did it in a cave with a bunch of scraps, pretty sure Mikel Arteta can coach us to beat Ange's spurs without Odegaard, Rice, Merino, possibly Calafiori...

[jozeydirtz]

City are 1000% not getting in trouble for those 115 charges, they’ll prevail

[simonmarie]

As if it wasn't enough for that ref to send Rice off. I bloody hate these international breaks

[BB-ckxe]

Hmmm, doesn’t give us a lot of time to practice anything new so I think I’d put my faith in combos that I know work well together.

I like the way Havertz and Saka have been linking up recently, so I’d be keen to keep those two close together (either as CF and RW or maybe as dual-8s?).

And I also really liked that ‘false 9’ pod of Havertz, Jesus and Trossard on the left against Leverkussen - that worked nicely.

Jesus and Martinelli used to have a good understanding (although it’s been a while since we’ve seen it).

And I’ve always thought that Saka and Sterling have combined really well for England when they’ve played together, so that’s another possibility (i.e. one as the 8, one as the winger).

The base of midfield is a little easier to pick - that will either have to be Partey as the lone 6 if we’re sticking with dual-8s, or Partey + Jorginho as a double-pivot with a 10 in front of them? Maybe we see both of those things at different times during the game?

I’m not so keen on the idea of chucking Zinchenko or Timber into midfield - I’m sure they have the skills, but I don’t think the understandings and partnerships would be there at this short notice (plus there’s a strong chance Timber will be needed at LB). And as eager as I am to see Nwaneri, I’m not sure this is the right time to be starting him, away in a NLD, when the midfield is looking really unstable. Maybe he comes off the bench at some point.

One big advantage we have: Postecoglu is the most predictable manager in the league so we know how they will try to play and we know where they are vulnerable. It’s also going to be incredibly hard for them to prepare for us because we don’t know what we’re going to do ourselves yet!

[nickhart]

If we want to be elite, then we have to deal with the setbacks and believe in the squad and the management to deal with it. We’re not the only club sending players to these internationals. If we perpetuate the story that our players need to be rested, then they’ll start believing it and subconsciously have a ready made excuse if needed.

[wasupm]

This is why selling ESR and loaning out Viera at the same time and not bringing a backup was a mistake.

[Cityzens]

If Arsenal want to be serious title contenders this is the sort of thing they will need to deal with. City went through the same thing last season and still managed to win the league, it's all about mentality and how you handle these situations.

[seanquigley]

Your Guest has it bang on
Nobody wants this BS international football, clubs now have a duty to NOT send their players to internationals
Our season is now screwed

[ThinkingOutLoudwithBK]

Havertz
Jorjinho Partey

Is the most likely lineup. Arteta wouldn't put a kid in a North London derby as the main man (10)

[slingshotdave]

Great discussion guys! It does feel like the world is against us rn, with the fixtures coming up and our best midfielders out to crazy “you could not write this” circumstances. I heard a mention of Timber being able to do a job in midfield but really surprised Zinchenko not considered. I often hear he is one of the most technically gifted players in the squad and with our abundance of left backs and the feeling that Partey and Georginho don’t have 90mins in their legs I thought he would be the man to best perform some of Odegards duties. Thoughts?

[janakipejov]

I literally know no one that likes/watches international football. Literally cancel all but world cup

[M-OO-cj]

jorghinho and partey as the 2 holding midfielders, sterling as a no. 10

[Dali_]

So Arteta needs to make a decision if he'll play Havertz on the L/R8 position, and have Jesus in the CF and maybe play Zinchenko, Jorginho or Partey in midfield 3. Makes for an exciting game. Arteta should win, and if he doesn't it questions the window and the plan going into the season. Apart from Liverpool and City we should expect to be winning every game, and if we are unsure we need to question recruitment and depth of squad. A crisis this early is good, it'll teach us alot about the club

[Blender]

Very few channels are talking about how we are going to handle what's in front of us is what we got. At least you guys discussed it. Control what we can and work from there.

[mpinto]

Its Ethans time to shine give him a chance, he will deliver

[ajyahzee]

Let's just accept this is a season where we fight for top 4 and do our best to win a cup

[nardu]

Nwaneri gets to step up.
We get to be excited about that, but it's not the timing we wanted