Arsenal suffer huge injury blow as star man Odegaard is withdrawn minutes before first pre-season friendly

MARTIN ODEGAARD has suffered an injury ahead of Arsenal’s friendly with FC Nurnberg today.

The club confirmed in a tweet that the club captain had suffered the injury while warming up for the match.

He was replaced in the starting XI by young Portuguese midfielder Fabio Vieira.

It was set to be the Norwegian’s first game of pre-season having not played in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Watford in a behind closed doors friendly.

And in his absence Arsenal could only draw 1-1 with the Bundesliga 2 side thanks to a comical own-goal from Jorginho.

There was a further blow for the Gunners when Leandro Trossard hobbled off after 50 minutes.

After the game Arteta said: “[Odegaard] and Leo are struggling.

“And we had other players with issues picked up in the week so we have to be cautious.

“It’s pre-season and some of them have only had two or three training sessions so we’ll take it step by step.”

The manager confirmed that Odegaard was “not feeling good enough to play” and added Trossard’s injury was “hopefully not” major.

But there was some good injury news for the Gunners as William Saliba made his first start since March after missing the run-in.

Any absence for Odegaard would be keenly felt by the Gunners, given his key role in last year’s title challenge.

The midfielder returned 15 goals and eight assists in his 37 Premier League appearances last season.

The Gunners are currently in Germany for the initial part of their pre-season tour before jetting off to America next week.

While in the US, they’ll play an MLS All Star team before high-profile clashes against Manchester United and Barcelona.

After that they’ll play Monaco in the Emirates Cup before taking on Manchester City in the Community Shield.

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He joined the club for £35million from Real Madrid in 2021 following a successful loan spell in North London.

Meanwhile Arsenal’s deal for Declan Rice continues to remain unconfirmed.

And West Ham are now ‘fuming’ with the North London club over the length of time it is taking to complete the deal.

The Hammers accepted Arsenal’s £105m bid for Rice NINE days ago and the player has passed his medical.

But as of yet, the deal is yet to be officially confirmed by both clubs.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk