Morning all.
It’s EFL Cup action tonight as we face Crystal Palace at home, and it’s a game where you would expect Mikel Arteta to make some changes. It’s more complicated at the back, where we just don’t really have the numbers because of all the injuries, but potentially we could use Christian Norgaard there, and last week the manager was quite effusive about 16 year old Marli Salmon, but it remains to be seen if he’s deemed ready for his first senior start. Myles Lewis-Skelly is surely set to play at left-back too in one of the more obvious and easy changes we can make back there.
In midfield, we have Mikel Merino, Ethan Nwaneri, Eberechi Eze and potentially Norgaard to use, and in the front three I expect to see Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli in the wide positions with Gabriel Jesus up top. Speaking about the Brazilian in the build-up to this one, Arteta said of his readiness:
You can see now, not only in games, every day in training, how much he wants it. He’s going to deserve a chance soon.
And what he might bring to the team:
I think that’s probably the biggest quality of Gabi, bringing people together, connecting with people and generating a lot of uncertainty in the opponent. When you see him against Everton, the amount of spaces that he was involved in, that’s his biggest quality. So we need to exploit that.
So, after such a long time sidelined, hopefully he’s a man determined to make up for all that lost time, and he can produce a performance which gives the manager something to think about. Last week he was asked about that ‘headache’ of which striker to choose when they’re all available, and basically said the headache was the fact his options have been so limited.
Today it’s likely to be Jesus’ opportunity, but the latest training photos show Kai Havertz back with the group, which is more good news. We’ll have to wait and see how far away he is from making the jump from training to competitive action, as it’s almost a year since he started a game for us, but it’ll be good to have him back. The ideal scenario is that level of competition between three potential starters at number 9 drives them in a really positive way. It doesn’t always work out like that, but we can hope.
As for Palace, they looked tired against Leeds on Saturday, ending up on the wrong end of a 4-1 defeat. They’ve played six times in December so far, one game more than us, and might well be feeling the effects. However, cup ties can be strange games, and this one squeezed in just before Christmas feels like one of those that has a slightly surreal edge to it.
A two-legged semi-final against Chelsea awaits the winner, and however you might feel about that in tandem with a title race, you can be sure this is a game and a competition that Mikel Arteta wants to win. It is also a chance for some of the players on the fringes to get playing time, and hopefully they can respond with the kind of performance we’d all like to see. I want Arteta to have multiple headaches, and I mean that sincerely, although obviously just about team selection and not a plethora of crippling migraines. Let’s see what they can produce.
For a little more on this game, we’ll have a quick preview podcast on Patreon a bit later, chatting to our Palace friend Dan from HLTCO. That should be out mid-morning, and if you haven’t had a chance in the meantime, the Arsecast Extra is below. And as ever we’ll have live blog coverage and all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News later.
Come on you reds!
