ROB HOLDING has taken up yoga to accelerate his ambitious bid for an England call-up.
The Arsenal defender will step-up his comeback from last years cruciate injury with a Europa League return against Vitoria Guimaraes tomorrow night.
Holding, 24, is frustrated at not playing a Premier League game since returning to action last month after after nine months on the sidelines.
But the player who has never lost a game under Unai Emery is confident that he is going to play a big role this season.
And he reveals he has taken his inspiration from footballs great survivor, saying: When I grew up my mum got me a Ryan Giggs DVD of his yoga and talking about how it lengthened his career.
I thought to myself if its good enough for Ryan Giggs, its good enough for me.
So Ive been doing yoga for about four years now and I would say theres about six players at Arsenal who are joining in with the sessions.
We do one session a week and its purely optional. But Freddie Ljungberg joins in as well and we all enjoy it.
Incredibly, Holding has not finished on the losing side since Arsenal were beaten 3-1 at Leicester back in May 2018.
He has played 18 games since then and was on the brink of Gareth Southgates senior England squad when he suffered his knee injury at Manchester United in December last year.
He says: I see the likes of Fikayo Tomori, Ben Chilwell and Trent Alexander-Arnold all playing for England and I know that the manager is giving young players a chance.
I know I was close to a call-up just before my injury. England were training here at London Colney and I had a little chat with Steve Holland.
He told me we were looking at you, so keep going and working hard and I am sure it will happen.
So now I think it is only a matter of time before I am playing regularly again and then Gareth Southgate will get the chance to look at me again.
