What is the point of it all?

I'm not the biggest fan of the international breaks. Don't get me wrong, summer tournaments are great fun with plenty of competitive matches to enjoy, but World Cup qualifiers, Euro qualifiers and Nations League matches? They can just disappear in my opinion. Look at tonight for example. England are playing Andorra for what feels like the 20th qualifying campaign in a row. We never lose, we never concede, we never look troubled, I'm never interested. Maybe it's a touch of snobbishness being an England fan knowing, or believing, that we are far too good to have our time wasted with games which offer nothing but the opportunity for Harry Kane to stat pad even further on his inevitable march to England's record goal scorer. 

I mentioned the Nations League can also disappear. This is a "tournament" that England very nearly won a couple of years ago. I say very nearly won. We made it to the semis, took the lead and then found out maybe our defenders shouldn't play out from the back. We found it out three times. And yet, I had no idea that the semis and final of this years iteration of the competition were also taking place in this round of fixtures until I was flicking through Sky Sports and stumbled upon Belgium V France which, to be fair, was a cracker. It was also the second semi, but there had been so little interest and advertisement that I had no idea that this competition, which UEFA are looking to use to replace friendlies with competitive fixtures, was even taking place. Maybe it was the lack of England involvement, but if the broadcasters don't want to promote it, why should I care about it?

The main reason that I usually despise these breaks from domestic fixtures is the lack of Arsenal that usually comes with it. When the previous international break rolled around at the end of September, I was actually pretty pleased. We'd been battered by Man City, were rock bottom of the league, hadn't scored and were in dire need of the break. The fact that barely any of our players received call ups for their nations afforded Mikel Arteta the opportunity to get in a full two weeks of work with the squad, and it seemingly paid off, as we went on to win our next three, including the North London Derby, and draw against Brighton. We had built up a decent amount of momentum, and it even led to Arteta winning his first Manager of the month award, the first an Arsenal manager had received since Arsene Wenger way back in 2015 when the trophy didn't look so much like a tin of deodorant.

So this international break has actually brought with it some frustration for me. Although we didn't really turn up against Brighton, we still ground out a point and would have been looking to carry that momentum forward. The fact we have a run of seemingly winnable fixtures ahead of us just adds to the annoyance. 

I'm sure Arteta will be making the most of the time off with the members of the squad who weren't called up, hopefully looking to fine tune the attack that is yet to really get firing this season. But how much can he really do when his top stars aren't there? He can work on patterns of play and the like all he wants, but if the players he wants to be using in those patterns aren't available to him then there's only so much it can achieve, surely?

The main concern with these breaks for me is the risk of key players coming back injured. Obviously injuries are a part of the game and are some times unavoidable. But if a player gets injured playing for the club I find that a bit easier to stomach than when they are injured playing for their country. I guess it's because when they are playing for their country it feels like it's more avoidable, especially if the game is mostly pointless. 

If Bukayo Saka came back from Andorra for example with a serious injury and was going to miss a lot of time, I would feel pretty furious. It's a game that is as close to a forgone conclusion as there is, yet players risk injury to compete in it. It only takes one reckless tackle from a frustrated semi-pro and a whole season can go up in smoke. If the same happens against a Chelsea or Manchester United, it's still infuriating but a bit easier to stomach because you know the game actually means something.

I'm sure there are people who quite enjoy these games, and good luck to them. I'm just not one of them and I'm not sure I ever will be. I'll just spend my evenings while the fixtures are going on sat with everything crossed that our boys come home unscathed.