In a clear act of mercy for our current injury plight, the footballing gods (and Spain manager Luis De La Fuente) saw fit to rest both Raya and Merino last night, as Spain beat Switzerland in what sounds like quite a compelling match. I wouldn’t know; international football and all that…

Tonight the gauntlet is run by Havertz and Timber and the hope must be that Havertz is rested, given that Germany have won their group, so there’s no need for any regulars to start tonight away in Hungary. Let’s see if Nagelsmann is as kind to us as De La Fuente was last night. I have my hopes.

Less so for the Netherlands, although they too are qualified with a draw over Bosnia and Herzegovina, so maybe Koeman might cut us some slack by letting Jurrien have the night off. I won’t count on it though.

What we are all counting is how the injuries are stacking up and that’s why I’ve got everything crossed for a clean bill of health from those playing this evening. Zinchenko hasn’t been getting any real game time, but even he is somebody that it feels like we’ll need in the coming weeks. No Ben White, Timber is still building himself back up from last season’s ACL, we have no real news on Tomiyasu of late, plus Calafiori I have already voiced a nagging background fear I have that he might end up being another injury prone player for us.

So Zinchenko’s availability – ironic I know, given how he has had consistent problems himself since signing for us – feels like something we are going to need. I agree with you if you are shaking your head reading this and saying “he’s a liability with his mistakes” and yes, they seem to have crept more into his game over the last 12 months than when he was first playing for us, but I think he is still a quality player and is still somebody that can offer something to us. Especially in those kinds of games where we’re going to dominate possession. You’d imagine a game like this weekend would be the sort of game he could do well in; Forest have pacey wide forwards and like to hit on transition, but if we’re talking about them breaking with one or two rapid players, you’d think that Saliba and Gabriel have the ability to match them. Then, on the right, we haven’t see as much of Timber going forward, so perhaps he can play a bit more of a role as a strong and robust full back effectively tucking in to make that a back three when Zinchenko is moving in to midfield.

I agree that if we’re going away to somebody like Liverpool, Chelsea, maybe Brighton with the likes of Mintah or Rutter dribbling at him, that could be an easy space to catch us out and especially if we have less possession. But Forest at home – as good as they’ve been – should be the sort of game in which Zinchenko could and should be used. Forest want to give us the ball, they’ll want to draw us out and hit us on the counter, but we’ll have most of it and the emphasis will be on us in our attacking third. So that’s why I’m not completely done with Zinchenko. There’s a time and a place for him and if Calafiori isn’t quite 100% fit for the weekend, then I’d have no problem with Zinchenko getting his old job at left back again.

Of course the big question is whether Arteta has that same faith. We’ll have to wait and see with that one.

I guess the same applies to Gabriel Jesus too. When we played City at home last season we did it without Saka and there probably wasn’t a single second’s doubt in Arteta’s mind that Gabriel Jesus would slot in at left wing. But this season his performances have been such that I bet if Saka is missing this weekend, it’ll be more of a question he’ll be asking of his coaching staff than a year ago. The good news for Jesus is that the potential injury to Trossard may mean his only competition is Sterling, which doesn’t feel like an impossible battle to win given Sterling’s form so far. But something has to spark back in to life with Gabriel Jesus, because his Arsenal career seems to be slipping away from him.

He just looks a little forlorn to me. He looks lost in a sea of his own melancholy and although we all had a lovely ol’ chuckle at Andre Vilas-Boas all those years ago when he talked about a ‘negative spiral’, the reality is that confidence and morale is a big thing in elite sports and he is the sort of guy that feeds off the positivity. He also feels to me like a bit of a sensitive soul and whilst his mentality has been described by Arteta before as ‘contagious’, I wonder if he’s the sort of player who needs to have an arm round him and a show of belief to kick him on when he’s in a bit of a sticky patch of form.

The problem he has, unfortunately, is that Arsenal’s aspirations mean that it is essentially impossible to carry players through patches of form. In the latter stages of Wenger’s time at the club we saw him persist with players to try to bring their confidence back up, even though it was fairly obvious they were past the point of return. I’m not saying that is the case with Gabriel Jesus, but Arteta will not be the guy to give Gabby J an extra three or four games of 70 minutes if he isn’t able to recapture his old form. It is incumbent on the player himself to do that. Quite how he does that I’m not sure, but as fans we all have to have hope, because today’s game is a squad one in which players not in the ‘first XI’ need to play their part and be ready to, if you want to achieve any of your aspirations.

We need the old Gabby J back.

That’ll do me for today. Back tomorrow as we finally get to cast this international break back into the shadows from whence it came.