Christian Norgaard is unlikely to play a significant role for Everton against former club Arsenal on Saturday, amid suggestions he’s still not back to his best after injury.
Following his summer move from Arsenal to Everton, Christian Norgaard has had a frustrating start to life with his new club.
A groin injury ruled the midfielder out until this month, and he only made his Everton debut last week against Chelsea, coming on as a late substitute.
Unfortunately, David Moyes has admitted that debut appearance made it clear that Norgaard still isn’t quite ready to have an impact for his new club.
“I think when we brought him on, we realised he’s a little bit further away than we all had hoped,” Moyes said. “But we expected that. We didn’t think he’d be fully firing until probably the next international break, if we’re being honest.
“He’s had no real pre-season with us, he’s probably had about seven days training.
“Christian was the first to come to me and say he’s sorry about it and he’s realised he’s a bit further away than we probably all thought.”
Everton are now set to travel away to Arsenal on Saturday afternoon, potentially providing Norgaard with a reunion with his former teammates.
But it doesn’t sound as though Moyes is tipping Norgaard for any kind of serious involvement against his old club. If he wasn’t ready for a few minutes against Chelsea last week, it would be a real surprise if he played any more than that against the team five points above Chelsea in the table.
On the other side of things, former Arsenal academy player Ainsley Maitland-Niles is in line to make his first-ever appearance against the Gunners.
As a loanee, Maitland-Niles was ineligible to play for West Bromwich Albion or Southampton in their games against Arsenal, and Lyon never hade a match against the Gunners during his three years there.
So even without Norgaard, there should be one former Gunner on the pitch.
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