Morning all.
We’re in FA Cup third round action this afternoon, visiting Fratton Park to take on Portsmouth. There’s plenty of scope for Mikel Arteta to rotate his side, except at the back where injuries to Piero Hincapie, Riccardo Calafiori and Cristhian Mosquera leave us a bit short.
I expect Myles Lewis-Skelly to come in at left-back, and Ben White to start on the opposite side, but in the middle – unless the manager does something like play Christian Norgaard at centre-half – there’s not a lot he can do other than play William Saliba and Gabriel. Potentially he could think about 16 year old Marli Salmon as an option, but I’d be surprised, and I imagine we’ll see some kind of timeshare job with the central defenders.
In midfield, and with Chelsea coming up in midweek, I think he’s got to rest Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi at the very least, and I think we’ll see Martin Odegaard drop out too. In there, he’s got Norgaard (assuming he’s not needed at the back), Mikel Merino, Eberechi Eze and Ethan Nwaneri at his disposal, so there’s no need to play any of that trio who have started most games of late.
Up front, I think we’ll see Noni Madueke on the right, Gabriel Martinelli on the left, and if it were me I’d start Gabriel Jesus up front. He got the nod in the last cup game against Crystal Palace, and while you could argue Viktor Gyokeres could do with the confidence boost of some goals, this game is a chance to manage the squad, so giving Jesus more minutes, and getting him closer to properly match fit, seems like the sensible move. There’s always scope for Gyokeres to come on later if you want.
That said, the potential inclusion of Kai Havertz in the squad might be an impediment to the Swede getting substitute minutes. If there’s an opportunity to ease Havertz back into action with 20/30 minutes off the bench, I feel like that would be more useful overall than Gyokeres scoring a goal against a Championship side. I think we have to prioritise, and for me, adding another forward to our ranks who can contribute for the rest of the season is far more important than a struggling summer signing scoring a goal or two that will be more or less dismissed anyway because of the opposition.
Portsmouth are having a difficult season, they sit 4th from bottom of the Championship, and only bottom side Sheffield Wednesday have scored fewer goals this season. I don’t know what to expect from them in terms of how they’ll set up, but I guess it’ll be a low block to begin with, with the hope if they can frustrate Arsenal for a while, the chance of an upset grows. However, with the quality we have on the pitch and on the bench, this should be a routine afternoon. You never take anything for granted, the magic of the cup and all that, but it would be nice if – after some stressful games of late – Arsenal could do this the relatively easy way and we can have a nice afternoon of football to enjoy.
As ever, we’ll have live blog coverage for you, all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News, and there’s even a preview podcast on Patreon if you need something to listen to in the meantime.
For now, have a good one, and I’ll catch you later for the game.
