Following his shocking snub for the World Cup, João Pedro was called up to Brazil for the season’s first international break coming up next week. Unfortunately, he’s going to have to wait a bit longer to pull on the famous shirt of the Seleção. Doubly unfortunately, it appears that he’s going to be out for this Friday’s game at Brentford as well.
While Brazil only confirmed that they have called up a replacement, the timing of the announcement leads us to believe that JP’s dealing with an actual injury.
Clubs often use minor injuries or ongoing concerns to keep players out of international duty, but that’s usually announced after the last club game prior to the international break, not before.
JP was also conspicuously absent from the public portion of yesterday’s training, alongside Reece James. While some reports have claimed that both were “expected” to be fit for Friday, that now would appear to not be the case, at least for JP.
Our No.9 has been in fine form to begin the season despite switching to that cursed number this summer, winning the Premier League’s Player of the Month award for August. He’s been directly involved in 6 of our 10 goals scored so far in the league (3+3). In his absence, Danny Welbeck would likely start; the veteran striker has also found the back of the net three times already, though only in the Carabao Cup.
