Selection decisions as a new season kicks off

Morning all.

Well, here we go again. The new season kicks off later this afternoon with a trip to Old Trafford, and Mikel Arteta has a decision or two when it comes to his starting XI. The obvious one is who starts up front between Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres. Obviously a manager’s responsibility is to pick a team that he thinks has the best chance to win the game, and not listen to too much external noise.

However, in this case, after such clamour for Arsenal to buy a striker, it feels like there would be far too much narrative if the summer arrival from Sporting didn’t start. I think it’s likely to be quite a close call between the two in Arteta’s mind. Havertz had a bit of an injury in pre-season, but Gyokeres arrived late-ish and had only been doing individual training for a few weeks. We know he loves the German, but I think it’s gotta be the new man today with some insurance/reassurance that off the bench he’s got someone who can really help the team.

Beyond that, the only other selection issue I can think of is left-back. In our preview podcast on Patreon, we picked the team and the bench, and ultimately we ended up leaving out two of Jakub Kiwior, Cristhian Mosquera and Leandro Trossard – reportedly fit again. I’ve seen video which shows Max Dowman has travelled with the squad too, something we didn’t consider in our conversation. It’s possible he’s there as the spare man (boy) and this is part of giving him the senior match-day experience, but regardless there are going to be some players left out today.

I had a very slight preference for Riccardo Calafiori to start this one, but if it’s Myles Lewis-Skelly then I’d be fine with that, and it might make sense to have the Italian as defensive depth. I’m going to assume Gabriel starts, but after a big injury and not a lot of playing time in pre-season, Arteta might have to consider the possibility the full 90 might be a challenge for him. Hence Calafiori on the bench. I saw Mosquera in the video and didn’t see Gabriel (which isn’t conclusive btw), so maybe it’s Saliba/Calafiori at the back, but otherwise I’d predict this:

Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard, Martinelli, Saka, Gyokeres.

Subs: Kepa, Timber, Calafiori, Norgaard, Merino, Nwaneri, Madueke, Havertz, Trossard/Dowman

Timber gives you defensive cover across the back-line, and Calafiori can come in at left-back or left centre-half. After that, I want to see a bench with players who can make a difference. Last season the running joke was that we had a plethora of left-backs at our disposal, but it wasn’t really that funny when you needed a goal and saw very few attacking options. Arteta has those at his disposal today and I really need to see the bench stacked up that way.

Midfield will be really important, and it’s quite the place for Martin Zubimendi to make his competitive debut. I don’t think he’ll be fazed though, and hopefully we see more of that promising combination play from the Athletic Bilbao game which saw him interchange quite a lot with Declan Rice and allowed Martin Odegaard to play higher up the pitch. Moving the ball more quickly from deep areas to our forward line is going to be one of the developments we see from the team this season, and hopefully that starts in earnest today.

As for United, they’ve obviously invested heavily in their forward line, which was a point of failure last season. There’s no question that Bryan Mbeumo, Mattheus Cunha, and Benjamin Sesko improve them in that regard, but I do wonder if they might have been better off investing some of that money in midfield, the centre of their defence, and in a goalkeeper. So, in that sense you hope that an improved Arsenal can find joy against a team that struggled in those areas last season, while banking on the solidity of our defence to offset their greater strength up front.

Old Trafford hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for us over the years. Some occasional wins, but too many games where it’s felt like we’ve played the history of Man Utd rather than the 11 men on the pitch. It’s a tough start to the season, but on that, Arteta says:

We need to play each other at some point, and we’ll start at an incredible stadium with so much history and a beautiful way to start the season. We will go game-by-game and make the best preparations and then perform to earn the right to win the game.

The stakes feel high, not just because of today’s opposition, but because of what’s expected from Arsenal this season. We’ve done solid business this summer, augmented the team and the squad where we needed to, and if there were some understandable reasons for our football to be less exciting and enjoyable last season, that’s not the case this time around. I don’t really care how we win today, once we do, but over the course of the campaign, I hope we can align results and performances in a way which remind people we are a very good team and one that should have everything required to challenge for the title.

So, there you go. A new season begins, and as ever we’ll have live blog coverage of the game for you, and all the post-match stuff – including player ratings and reaction – on Arseblog News.

For now, have a good Sunday, and come on you Gunners!