- Inter Milan v Arsenal: the Champions League mess, rising fast, and past results
- Inter v Arsenal: 8pm, 6 November. This looks tough.
Raya
White Saliba Gabriel Timeber
Partey Rice Havertz
Saka Jesus Martinelli
Which means Odegaard might be on the bench, or might make his return at the weekend. And that really does put the focus on Arsenal’s problems this season: when it comes to the pressure that now exists in around half of the matches in the Premier League, complete cover is now needed for every position, and “complete” means not only players that can fit into the system but players who are used to what goes on in English Premier League football.
Which of course in turn means not only the intensity of almost all of the opposition, but always the strange ways of the referees.
Which in turn gives another problem: moving from coping with Premier League referees to a very different approach to refereeing which is found in the European games. Arsenal have shown in the last two seasons that yes they can work around the PGMO approach to football – but then suddenly adjusting to European approaches is tough.
I think for Arsenal much depends on Martinelli. We all know he had a significant drop in form last season, and he has been finding his way back this season, but now suddenly playing again in Europe, that might be difficult for him. If he can adjust to the European game, Arsenal could surprise most commentators. But if not…
However the Standard sees things differently, saying “Odegaard, however, trained with his Arsenal team-mates on Tuesday morning and could make his comeback at the San Siro in what is a huge Champions League clash for Mikel Arteta’s side.” Now that would be a surprise.
However they then add…
“The midfielder would most likely be involved from the bench” They also have Arteta saying ““Obviously he’s trained with us for the first time, a full session today.”
But they then go further saying, ““He felt good, it’s a bit earlier than we expected, but he wanted to be with the team, so we’ll decide tomorrow whether we use him, but at least it’s a big step that he’s travelled with us and is part of the team. Declan Rice, though, will miss the trip to Inter Milan due to a foot issue and he is also a doubt for Sunday’s trip to Chelsea.”
Which of course is not the news carried elsewhere.
Which really brings up the main point. It is not about having reserves who can play, but reserves who can play at the highest level. And players who can play at the highest level really don’t want to be sitting on the bench all season. And players who can switch from the demands of the Premier League and PL referees and seamlessly move across the the European way of doing things.
This is a point that was brought up before: Arsenal had very few injuries last season, and so didn’t suffer from this issue – but even then had problems in Europe because the squad didn’t really have that experience of playing against foreign teams, and more particularly foreign referees. I fear this could be a difficult game for Arsenal.
Football Lineups have a team of
David Raya,
Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Rice,
Partey, Merino, Saka,
Trossard, Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli
Which is a trifle odd because immediately below that they have “Arsenal players not available” and in the list is D Rice. But they do tell us they think it will be a draw.
Yahoo Sports adds another name however: Sterling playing alongside Saka and Jesus in the front line and with Havertz playing in midfield, which seems much more likely to me. But all will be revealed in due course.
