Christos Tzolis
Christos Tzolis
A player who refuses to come off is the version coaches praise in the moment. It is also the version that turns a twitch into a scan.
Nations League games are not qualifiers. A manager who protects a forward in October is thinking about the club that pays him, not the table in Athens.
Three weeks is a guess until the pictures come back. The fixtures in that window are not.
Christos Tzolis is facing around 20 days out with a right hamstring injury suffered in Greece’s Nations League draw with the Netherlands, the Standard reports.
He was forced off inside the opening 20 minutes in Thessaloniki on Thursday, after a strike had already been ruled out for offside. He insisted on staying on. Ivan Jovanovic took him off anyway. He will miss Greece’s game against Germany and return to Arsenal for scans. An initial assessment was done in Greece on Friday afternoon.
🚨BREAKING: Christos Tzolis is expected to miss four weeks after the hamstring injury he suffered yesterday while playing for Greece.
He’s estimated to return against Liverpool in November.
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Jovanovic said: “How do I handle it? You tell me? I’m his coach, I tell him to go out and he says ‘I’m not going out’.
“How do I handle it? So, this is something that I characterise as the Greek mentality and all these kids who come to play in the national team regardless of age. I think it was a scene that everyone saw, those who were close.
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“I told him to get out, because I suspected that he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t felt something. We don’t know how big the damage is today, but I hoped it was just a twitch, something temporary.
“I didn’t have any reason to be honest, because these aren’t qualifiers, they’re the Nations League. First and foremost I wanted to protect the player.
“He didn’t want to stay near me to go out. Instead, he went to defend the corner. And then he went out. These are our players.”
If the 20-day timeline holds, the £34million summer signing from Club Brugge misses Leeds at home on 10 October, Lille in the Champions League on 13 October and Nottingham Forest away on 18 October. Bayern Munich away on 21 October would still be a major doubt. Everton at home three days later is the more realistic return. Arsenal play six times in October across three competitions.
Kai Havertz is already back at London Colney with a muscle strain from Germany duty, with Leeds listed only as a hopeful date. Two attackers on hamstring timelines in the same week is the problem Arteta did not have when September’s player vote was published. Viktor Gyokeres is the forward who has been waiting for a league start. He may not be waiting much longer.
The scan is still the document that matters. Twenty days is a report, not a diagnosis Arsenal have confirmed. Until they do, Tzolis is out of the restart and a doubt for the trip to Munich.