Thomas Tuchel has hit back against social media suggestions that Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice faked injuries to get out of England duty, insisting it made “no sense” not to release them.
Arsenal duo Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice both turned up for England duty on Friday, but by Saturday evening they’d both withdrawn from the camp to return to north London.
Given a number of other Arsenal players have also withdrawn from international duty in recent days, there were some suggestions online that they could all be faking injuries to get out of friendlies ahead of the Gunners’ key games in April.
But England boss Thomas Tuchel has attempted to “get the narrative straight” in his press conference on Monday, explaining that both players wanted to be involved.
“They had a medical assessment, wanted desperately to play, to just get the narrative straight, wanted desperately to be involved,” Tuchel began. “But it just made no sense to take this risk.
“If it would have been maybe a last game of the season, we would have kept them and tried everything. But in this moment of the season, it did not make sense.
“The risk for making it worse was just way too big, they were both in discomfort, clearly in discomfort, when we did the medical assessment. So it made absolutely no sense that they stay.”
The good news for Arsenal fans is that it doesn’t sound like either player is seriously injured.
Tuchel’s suggestion that England could have pushed Saka and Rice to be involved if it were a more important game suggests that both should be fit to play by the time Arsenal reach their Champions League quarter-final next month.
It just might be for the best if Mikel Arteta turns to other players for the FA Cup tie against lower-league Southampton this weekend.