Mikel Arteta is facing a number of Arsenal dilemmas for this weekend’s Premier League clash against Southampton. The Gunners have played and won their last three games all at Emirates Stadium with Arteta in search of another victory on home soil before the October international break.
A 5-1 Carabao Cup victory over Bolton was followed up by a 4-2 triumph against Leicester and a dominant 2-0 win at the expense of Paris Saint-Germain. Despite numerous injury issues, Arsenal are still unbeaten this season, having already played Tottenham and Manchester City.
Ben White and Martin Odegaard are the current key absentees, with Mikel Merino and David Raya recently overcoming thigh and shoulder issues, respectively. Takehiro Tomiyasu is still yet to feature this season, though he has returned to training, and that could have arrived at the perfect time.
“So I didn’t want to take any risks. He’s been out for a year and he’s played a lot of minutes, probably more minutes than we would have wanted in the past few weeks and we have to manage him.” Timber was already covering for White at right-back and now Arteta may need to find a replacement for him to face Southampton.
Tomiyasu is the most natural fit, however there may be a reluctance to start him as he has missed the last two months and will likely only have had four training sessions. Alternatively, Arteta could revert back to a previous tactic and shift Thomas Partey out to full-back.
The Ghana international has started every Premier League game this season in a holding midfield role with Declan Rice, Odegaard, Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz just some of the options deployed ahead of him. Ethan Nwaneri is now also firmly part of the first-team and Arteta has another new midfielder to call on in Merino.
After missing the last four weeks, the Spaniard replaced Partey and put in a bright 26-minute cameo. With Southampton unlikely to offer a major threat, Arteta could be tempted to bring him straight into the starting XI with Rice pushed back to become the deepest-lying midfielder.
For the opening three games of last season, Partey was utilised as an inverted full-back before a groin injury resulted in him missing the next four games. It was an experiment that saw Gabriel Magalhaes left on the bench, but the Brazil international has made himself undroppable and this time he would remain in, with Merino coming into the team.
