Sokratis Papastathopoulos has joined a growing list of Arsenal stars called up for the upcoming international break, as the first of the dreaded weekends without Premier League football draws nearer.

Sokratis is set to add to his 79 appearances for the Greek National Team next week, with trips to Estonia on September 8th and Hungary on September 11th. The 30-year-old was named in the squad alongside his usual defensive partner for his country, Kostas Manolas.

Konstantinos Mavropanos isn’t playing regularly enough for Arsenal to join the Greek senior side just yet, so he misses out.

Meanwhile, Danny Welbeck is in the England squad yet again, just as he was for the run to the World Cup semi-final over the summer. Alex Iwobi has a call up for Nigeria for their AFCON qualifiers as well, with Arsenal loanee Kelechi Nwakali joining them officially for the first time.

Hopefully they and anyone else called up have a successful and injury-free trip away with their countries.

It’d certainly be nice for the international break not to cause Arsenal more problems this time around. Last time we sent our star playmaker off with Germany and got him back after he’d been subject to racial abuse and scapegoating all summer. Any improvement on that would be good.