Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have had to withdraw from the France and England squads for the Toulon Tournament, after picking up injuries.
The two Arsenal players both initially received call-ups for the u21 tournament, along with Joao Virginia (Portugal) and Eddie Nketiah (England). On Tuesday, the FA announced Maitland-Niles would have to pull out, due to an ‘underlying’ injury.
Then, on Saturday, Arsenal youth expert Jeorge Bird spotted Jeff Reine-Adelaide had also withdrawn from the tournament.
Although there’s no official news on why, it’s pretty straightforward to figure out. Reine-Adelaide came off early with injury after 15 minutes in his final match on loan with Angers last weekend. Clearly he hasn’t recovered in time.
Maitland-Niles has had a long and generally injury-free season, so hopefully he’ll shake off his knock quickly, and get some rest before pre-season.
Reine-Adelaide, on the other hand, has had a campaign littered with injury concerns. Before he went on loan, he missed six u23 matches out of the 14 available. Then, with Angers, he picked up at least two injuries, and didn’t play 90 minutes of football on a single occasion.
The 20-year-old clearly has talent, but he needs to stay fit in the final season of his Arsenal contract if he’s hoping for a renewal. The club can’t afford to keep paying the wages of unfit players.