Good morning everyone.
“Arsenal” will be the guest of “Slavia Prague” in the Champions League tonight. There was a big boost ahead of the game with William Saliba returning to full training and the Frenchman is with the squad for tonight’s game. Whether he starts is another question, but he’s in good enough shape to be in contention for minutes, and that can only be a good thing.
It was obviously the topic of conversation at the manager’s pre-match press conference last night, providing an update on how the recovery is going:
He’s in a really good place. I think the process, the times and the way he dealt with the injury and especially the feelings Willy had along the way were very, very positive. So his evolution was as expected, which is not always the case. He feels very comfortable. He played 45 minutes behind closed doors last week and feels ready to go. So whether or not we use him now is a matter of what the team needs.
Ever since the arrival of Ezri Kons, there has rightly been a lot of praise and a question about his inclusion in the team, and how he will solve the two three “problems” when choosing centre-backs going forward:
We haven’t had that luxury so far, I wouldn’t call it a problem! We can talk about many different problems. The moment they’re fit and available, we’ll have the ability to rest players or load players and manage player density better than we actually do.
This is definitely the kind of challenge every manager wants to have. There’s no need to rush Saliba back, we can be cautious about his reintegration and then when we have trouble deciding who plays in what game, this feels like a bridge we can cross when we get to him. But it is a very beautiful bridge.
Other than that, I think there is real room for the rotation tonight. The likes of Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie will be looking for minutes at the back and if we don’t see Declan Rice or Martin Odegaard in the starting line-up tonight, I’d be totally fine with that. The manager could opt for two World Cup winners in midfield, and if he did, he could still leave out one of Myles Lewis-Skelly or Bruno Guimaraes – the sort of ‘luxury’ he should be chasing.
Speaking about Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi, he said of their involvement so far this season:
They play a key role. If we focus on the starting players, it is different. Mikel has already started some games, some important games, and he is coming from the World Cup, a very successful World Cup. We know the value of the players in the squad. They need to feel important. I think they feel very important and we have to make sure they continue to do that because every time they play, if they have that spirit and belief, they will do anything to help the team win the game.
Ahead, it’s a little trickier. Eberechi was a doubt for the game against Liverpool, while Christos Tzolis was almost a full 90 player after returning from injury. I wonder if there is any possibility of starting Max Dowman on the right, which means you can split time on the left between the two I mentioned above and/or Noni Madueke. I think you have to look at this as another chance for Victor Gokeres, who was on the scoresheet against Fleetwood, but on a night where any confidence boost was offset by our loss to a lower league opponent. His minutes have been a little short so far this season, but it would be hard to argue that he has done enough to give the manager plenty to think about when he has played. He could really use the goals and a decent performance tonight.
I suppose the loss to Fleetwood might give some pause for thought as to how far Arteta can turn, but if you can’t give players minutes in games like this, then they won’t be in the shape you need when and if required for the tougher fixtures. Nothing can be taken for granted against a side who are top of their domestic league, but they have been a bit underwhelming in Europe this season and if this isn’t a time to test the depth of our squad, I don’t know what is. Let’s see!
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Before we go today, Andrew Allen has a feature in his weekly Patreon newsletter covering match day tips. Close to restaurants/bars etc. started with, but over time has evolved into something more global. With the help of @bootifulgame.bsky.social – they’ve developed a very cool interactive tool that you can check out here – and it’s now available as a permanent feature on this site.
We often get asked “Where can I watch Arsenal fans while I’m in X city” etc. We get questions like, and many places around the world are already listed. If you want to add to the map, you can provide a recommendation to show where your local bar or venue is, and if you’re traveling somewhere, it’s the perfect reference for when you’re at an Arsenal game and want to hang out with other fans. This is a real community project designed to bring supporters together and can improve over time with your help.
I’m sure it will be really useful and we will try to include it in future applications.
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All right, I’ll leave it for the morning. As always, we’ll be bringing you live blog coverage of the game later on, as well as match coverage, player ratings, manager reaction, a roundup of quotes and more on Arseblog News. as we will provide all the information after the game. Don’t forget that the updated Arseblog apps have a beautiful new game center full of stats, alerts and more.
Catch you later for the game.