Arsenal players have an excellent International break

Phew, the interlull is over and it appears that Arsenal’s international players have come through it unscathed. Theo Walcott was the victim of a painful looking tackle to his achilles, but he played on for quite a while before being replaced. He was limping a bit when he came off, and it would have been painful but there shouldn’t be any lasting damage. Neither Theo nor Jack Wilshere played particularly well, but that was the story of the match for England, although a draw does leave then top of the group and with two home games to come. Aaron Ramsey had another disappointing night as Wales lost 3 – 0 at home to Serbia, although the good news for Arsenal is that his own performance was excellent again. Ramsey played the full game, as did Tomas Rosicky for the Czech Republic, who also lost to Italy. Giroud, Sagna and Koscielny all completed the full 90 minutes for France, but their efforts were better rewarded with a 4 – 2 win in Belarus. It was also nice that both Belarus goals were down to poor goalkeeping from the Tottenham stopper Hugo Lloris. Arsenal’s new boy Mesut Ozil also played 90 minutes, and was very influential as Germany beat the Faroe Islands 3 – 0. Ozil slotted their second goal away from the penalty spot, but it was the big Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker who got them started, scoring from a corner in the first half. Santi Cazorla was one of only five Spanish players to play the whole of their friendly draw against Chile, and the fact that the international Gunners played for all or most of the games is the only area of concern going into Saturday’s game at Sunderland. Having said that, not getting any more injuries is great news.