Arsenal have seemingly blocked Emile Smith Rowe from going on international duty with the England u19s, instead retaining him for first-team training on Wednesday.

With the international break well underway, many Arsenal stars have travelled around the world with their countries. Nonetheless, Arsenal held a first-team training session on Wednesday for those who stayed behind.

Smith Rowe was part of the session, despite his international youth call up. It seems Arsenal made the decision to keep him around on this occasion.

This isn’t the first time Arsenal have seemingly stepped in to stop a young player going away with their country’s youth side. Earlier in the summer, Matteo Guendouzi was meant to be going to the u19 European Championships with France. Instead, Arsenal held on to him, and took him on their first-team tour of Singapore.

We all saw how that turned out, with Guendouzi winning himself a regular spot in the senior side as a result. Perhaps Smith Rowe is hoping he could get a similar opportunity if he sticks around with Arsenal. We’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s the full list of senior and youth players we know took part in first-team training on Wednesday (via Arsenal Youth):

Senior: Petr Cech, Bernd Leno, Emiliano Martinez, Hector Bellerin, Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal, Matteo Guendouzi, Rob Holding, Mesut Özil and Alex Lacazette.

Youth: Emile Smith Rowe, Gedion Zelalem, Julio Pleguezuelo, Robbie Burton, Charlie Gilmour, Nathan Tormey and Tolaji Bola.