Martin Odegaard has pulled out of international duty with Norway, opting to stay with Arsenal and work on his recovery from injury.

Simon Collings confirms that Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard hasn’t travelled to Norway for international duty over the coming break, and he’ll instead stay at London Colney to work on his injury.

Norwegian outlet TV 2 had previously claimed that Odegaard’s current injury problems meant he wouldn’t join up with the squad for their matches against the Faroe Islands and Scotland, and this has now been confirmed.

Odegaard’s injury is a new one sustained in training last week, unrelated to the previous hip problem that kept him out of the starting lineup against Sheffield United at the end of October.

The good news is that recent reports on Odegaard suggest the midfielder should be fit for the Gunners after the international break.

Mikel Arteta confirmed as much in his post-match press conference on Saturday.

“I’m going to have a meeting now with the medical department to understand everybody’s situation and I think he is going to be back after the international break,” Arteta said.

“But I don’t know exactly what the decision is and the communication at the moment.”

Odegaard featured in all of Arsenal’s first 14 games of the season, but he’s only played 10 minutes in the last five matches.

Arteta would certainly welcome his captain back as soon as possible, and it appears that could be in the first game after the break, away to Brentford on November 25th.