Four matches in 11 days made the latest international break a stress test. Wales head coach Craig Bellamy framed it as a matter of design: “The intensity of the squad, the athleticism of it, really, I think it’s designed for the elite,” he said. Elite club coaches would take a different view. Across the Nations League and the wider programme of international fixtures staged around the globe, the break produced a daily list of casualties, with club officials watching through their fingers as players pulled up and gestured to the bench.
Hamstring and muscle problems were rife. Sunderland will be without the striker Brian Brobbey and the defender Dan Ballard after strains picked up playing for the Netherlands and Northern Ireland respectively. Bournemouth, yet to win a Premier League match, have lost Alex Scott for up to two months. His display for England in their 7-0 victory over Croatia drew rave reviews, a young player taking his chance and outshining Luka Modric, but it came at a cost: a quadriceps injury diagnosed before the match worsened. “There was zero risk taken from our side,” said Thomas Tuchel. Marco Rose, the Bournemouth coach, is unlikely to see it that way.
The break had begun with a new phrase entering the football lexicon. Cole Palmer, despite missing the World Cup, would be absent, for reasons of “load management”, the briefing said — wording also used for Declan Rice’s absence and borrowed from the NBA, where basketball’s star players must negotiate an 82-game regular season before the playoffs. Elite football is making similar demands: Rice played 69 matches during the 2025-26 season, 5,394 minutes in total.
Arsenal still had 17 players called up for internationals. Mikel Arteta, given time to stew over a 3-0 defeat by Brighton, is counting them back into training with concern. Ezri Konsa’s withdrawal from the England squad on Monday followed injuries for Christos Tzolis and Kai Havertz. Playing for Greece against the Netherlands, Tzolis pulled his shirt over his head after injuring a hamstring; against the same opponents, playing for Germany, Havertz suffered a similar problem — another setback for a player too often denied to Arteta. A further scare came when Max Dowman left the field after taking a heavy tackle while playing for England Under-19s.
There was better news over Martin Ødegaard, the recipient of a hefty challenge from Portugal’s Bernardo Silva while playing for Norway on the first Sunday of the break. “Nothing dramatic” was the verdict from the Norwegian camp after the X-ray, and Ødegaard returned to face the same opponents. That second encounter with Portugal was marked by concern for Erling Haaland when he requested to leave the field, though it was all part of the plan according to the Norway head coach, Ståle Solbakken. “For those who play in the Champions League and have had little vacation, it’s more brutal than for the others,” Solbakken said. Haaland has been given a brief, though required, rest before Manchester City travel to Liverpool for their first match since the club was found guilty of 100-plus breaches of Premier League financial regulations.
England’s workload was also under scrutiny. Elliot Anderson and Marc Guéhi, alongside Harry Kane, were the only England players to start all four Nations League matches, while Nico O’Reilly withdrew halfway through.
Liverpool’s problems appear to run deeper, with Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo, early successes for the Andoni Iraola regime, sustaining injuries with Sweden and the Netherlands respectively. Jérémy Jacquet, another bright spark this season, reportedly strained a hamstring with France.
The Premier League weekend’s other headline clash, Manchester United hosting Tottenham, will also be without key personnel. United’s Patrick Dorgu pulled up with a hamstring injury when playing for Denmark, while another option at left-back, Noussair Mazraoui, took a knock playing for Morocco against Lesotho. Bruno Fernandes, who has been playing through an injury described by his national coach, Jorge Jesus, as a “complicated problem”, is likely to push through the pain barrier. Spurs’ relief that Micky van der Ven’s hand injury was not serious was tempered by Jan Paul van Hecke’s foot injury, while the World Cup winner Pedro Porro missed Spain’s assignments and will not return in time for the trip to Old Trafford.
The injuries are not confined to English football. Bayern Munich have lost Jamal Musiala to the torn muscle in his right thigh sustained on international duty with Germany. Jürgen Klopp’s selection of 44 players for his first camp was partially designed to lower the load, yet still delivered casualties.
Even the very best were hurt. Kylian Mbappé sprained his knee in the second match of Zinedine Zidane’s France reign, though he appears to be on the road to recovery judging by social media pictures of a cycling expedition. How José Mourinho received that can only be speculated on, given Real Madrid’s manager said this week of players in their downtime: “You cannot ride a bike. You fall off your bike, and you don’t play three matches maybe, or maybe worse, maybe you break a leg.” Mourinho is not alone in having his mood darkened by this extended international break.