In the morning.
Arsenal are in contention in the Champions League tonight and while there is still room for Mikel Arteta to change his squad, we go into this game without two players who could start the game.
The manager confirmed that both Martin Zubimendi and Piero Hincapie picked up injuries in the small-sided game following Saturday’s win over Leeds. He said:
On Sunday, we scheduled practice after the game for players who didn’t have enough minutes to give everyone a recovery day and get everyone in the right rhythm. We lost two players in two very unfortunate moves and yeah, not great.
Also in the time frames for both:
Both of them will miss tomorrow’s match, that’s for sure, and will undergo further tests today. We will know more tomorrow. Then we’ll see how they go. I think Piero is a bit more serious, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Losing one player in the warm-up is unfortunate, losing two is borderline careless, although these incidents could easily have happened in a normal training session. I’m pretty sure Zubimendi would have stepped aside to let Declan Rice (at least initially) sit out this one, and for Riccardo Calafiori, Hincapie obviously made sense to handle the burden on the Italian, who has had injury problems in the past. So, without those two players, he has some thinking to do.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Rice start again with a view to managing his minutes as a second-half substitute, and if Myles Lewis-Skelly is asked to fill in at left back, that could probably make sense. We have Eberechi Eze, Mikel Merino and Bruno Guimaraes available for a midfield role against Leeds tonight, so the depth is there if he wants to use it.
Eze could also be a candidate on the left, but perhaps Noni will try to see what Madueke can do with a number of games on that side. Personally, I’d like Eze, Madueke to start on the right, and after Bukayo Saka’s lackluster performance (after which his criticism has been a little overblown and turned into some downright unpleasant stuff), it might not be a bad idea to give him some rest ahead of the tough trip to Nottingham Forest.
After that we have the striker decision. I think we know Mikel Arteta’s preference between Kai Havertz and Victor Gyokerez, but I’d be very worried for the Sweden international if he didn’t get the nod tonight. Havertz wasn’t great on Saturday, it’s not as if he’s given a performance that necessarily demands to start the next game, and as I said before Leeds, it’s Arteta’s job to get Gyokere off. Once he’s on the field, the onus is on the player, but unless you give him the opportunity to play, there’s very little he can do so far to change the trajectory of the season. I can’t say I’m his biggest fan, but I want to see him start tonight. Hopefully he can deliver a performance and goals that will benefit the team on the night and going forward because we have a lot of football to play and being a centre-forward on the sidelines and on the sidelines with the manager is far from ideal.
Arteta also spoke about getting better in the Champions League this season and tonight’s opposition:
We know how difficult it is and how many times we have done it in the history of our club. So realize that first and tomorrow we will have a really tough opponent. They train very, very well. What David has done, I think, is remarkable. You can see the way they compete and the way they play and the problems they cause the big teams and tomorrow will be no different until we are ready for it.
So let’s see what trouble they will try and cause us next. Lille’s 40-year-old Olivier Giroud adds a little something to the proceedings, and to still be a striker at that age, regardless of his time at a particular club, is quite remarkable. Maybe his reception will be mixed, but hopefully he has a quiet game and the most we see from him is some waves from the full-time crowd when his team is thoroughly beaten.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. As always, we’ll bring you live blog coverage of the game later, as well as a match report, player ratings, manager reaction, quote roundups and more on Arseblog News. as we will provide all the information after the game. For something to listen to before kick-off, there’s an episode of The 30 on Patreon, which is heavy on Man City but also has some fun football to discuss.
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.