Morning from a very chilly Dublin. Winter has arrived. Booooo!
Let’s start with the bad news, and something I can’t say is a surprise. It was reported by James and David Ornstein in The Athletic yesterday (€) that Gabriel is set to miss a significant chunk of time with the injury he sustained playing for Brazil. There’s no definite time-frame, but it could be up to two months, which is, of course, a real blow.
It will spark plenty of debate. First and foremost – who replaces him in the team, and that’s something we can touch on another day. The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that we do have good options, but obviously missing one of your best players, and a real presence on the pitch is always going to damage you to some extent. Gabriel has cultivated a kind of aura, defensively and offensively, which I don’t think any of the others have, for understandable reasons. So beyond selecting someone to play in that position, we miss those intangibles which are very hard to quantify but also to replace.
Then the inquest into how it happened will take place, and as fans we’ll look at every possible thing. I’ve seen it said Gabriel was carrying something, and he should have told Brazil he wouldn’t play, but we don’t know that for sure. He has played a lot this season, off the back of a big injury and surgery last season too, so was there scope for Mikel Arteta to play someone else in one or two of the games he featured in? Would that even have made a difference? We don’t know.
It was typical of our season that Viktor Gyokeres, who had also played a lot, picked up his hamstring strain having had a midweek rest. There’s nothing to definitely say that fewer minutes for Gabriel would have prevented this. Then there’s the questioning of him playing in what is perceived as a ‘meaningless’ game, and look, I get the frustration when someone gets injured in a friendly, but clearly this game was not meaningless to Gabriel. Representing his country and playing at his home stadium, it was always going to mean something a bit more because of that.
Remember, in the last Interlull, Brazil travelled to South Korea and Japan, 10,000+ air-miles, more than 24 hours in the air combined, and he came back fine. This time he just had to go down the road and he picked up an injury. So, who can really say exactly why this happened and who is to blame? It’s not one thing, it’s a combination of so many differing factors, but perhaps the underlying one as people strike out in all directions is the amount of football modern players at the top of the game have to play.
You can blame Brazil, Carlo Ancelotti, Gabriel himself, Mikel Arteta, our training pitches, the pitch at the Emirates, whoever you want, but I think the most obvious thing is just how hard these players have to work for club and country these days. The schedule is relentless, the game is played at such high intensity nowadays too, and the reality is that there will be casualties along the way. We either address the core issue of the schedule, or we learn to live with players getting injured. It strikes me that having built this big squad, those within the game accept that there will never be less football because that means less money, so the answer is, when someone like Gabriel gets injured, you have Riccardo Calafiori, Piero Hincapie or Cristhian Mosquera to fill that gap.
And although we feel every injury issue so acutely because of our experience (recent or otherwise), it’s not not just Arsenal suffering. This is a growing issue across the Premier League, and I can’t escape the feeling that it will continue to be a problem throughout this season. I don’t have the gumption or inclination to look into it in depth, but I’d bet since the lockdown and the way trying to ‘catch up’ has impacted the schedules, there’s been a sharp rise in the average frequency and seriousness of injuries in the professional game.
The Gabriel news was exacerbated by an update from Germany’s manager about Kai Havertz who has, according to him, had a little set-back in his recovery from the knee injury/surgery. He says generally he’s doing well, and is expected back in December, but any hopes he might be available for this weekend seemed to have been dashed. It remains to be seen who might be back for the North London derby, so we’ll have to wait and see whatever scant information we get from Mikel Arteta when he meets the press on Friday.
For now, let’s wish Gabriel a speedy recovery. He’s as much a fighter when it comes to this kind of stuff as he is on the pitch, so he’ll be desperate to get back as soon as possible, but the important thing is to get back 100%. Good luck.
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Meanwhile, after Ireland’s incredible late win over Hungary to reach the World Cup playoffs, Scotland went one better last night by beating Denmark in injury time to reach the tournament proper. And the goal that sent them through? Scored by none other than former Gunner Kieran Tierney.
Happy Kieran Tierney, Happy me. Happy Scotland ! 🥹❤️
— Prashant 🌊 (@prasshant.bsky.social) 2025-11-18T21:53:17.653Z
The BBC Scotland commentary on that is great, reminiscent of how the RTE lads went spare when Troy Parrott scored that winner. Honestly, what a moment for him (and Scotland obviously!), but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to love that for KT himself. After all the injury problems he’s had, and I think probably continues to play through, to produce something like that help send his nation through is remarkable. He absolutely deserves to have the sun shine on him in that way after so many weeks and months in the doldrums, dealing with the pain and the rehab and the setbacks and all the rest.
There will be many Arsenal fans frustrated by what has happened in this break, but as I wrote the other day, there’s something special about moments like these in games that really mean something. Ireland showed it, Scotland showed it, and for a player that remains a big favourite with so many Gooners, it was an Interlull to remember.
Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now. Stay warm, back with more tomorrow.
