Mikel Arteta and his squad will be hurting from the narrow loss to Aston Villa but the football keeps coming, as they travel to the Netherlands to take on PSV Eindhoven, a team that they dominated with ruthless efficiency in September.
After five games played in the Champions League, Arsenal sits pretty on 12 points, while their opponents for tomorrow, PSV Eindhoven, are currently on eight points, but PSV is assured of a place in the knockout phase of the Champions League courtesy of their good head to head record against RC Lens that’s on five points.
This is essentially what we regard as a dead rubber game, so Arteta can use the fixture to completely overhaul the squad, giving rest to his key players that have played so much football in December and also hand out game time to those in the fringes of the squad with an opportunity to don the Red and White, with pride.
Without further ado, Gooner Daily reviews the proposed lineup for the clash against PSV Eindhoven.
Goalkeepers
It is well documented that Aaron Ramsdale has lost his place to David Raya, and even Raya’s litany of errors in the pulsating win over Luton Town didn’t cause him his place in the Aston Villa game. With literally nothing at stake in the PSV game, I would expect Ramsdale to get his first Champions League game for the club.
Hell, it was his goalkeeping heroics last season that contributed immensely to Arsenal finishing in the Champions League spots.
Karl Hein and James Hilson are still very young and will have to wait for their chance.
Defenders
Jakub Kiwior will be odds on to get a shot ahead of Oleksandr Zinchenko in this final Champions League game, but Arsenal doesn’t have sufficient depth at the back to feature an overhauled backline. Jurrien Timber and Takehiro Tomiyasu are nursing injuries, while Cedric Soares is out of favor and is very unlikely to feature for the club before his contract expires this summer.
There might be an outside chance for youngster, Lino Sousa, but I don’t know if he has travelled with the squad to Eindhoven. This essentially means that Mikel Arteta will need to call on his regulars, Gabriel, William Saliba and Ben White, to complete the back line for the clash against PSV.
However, with White still recovering from injury, I would expect Arteta to hopefully hand out a start to Cedric to allow the English fullback get some deserved rest ahead of the grueling Premier League schedule for the rest of December.
Midfielders
This would have been a perfect fixture to give some valuable game time to Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira, but sadly, they are both injured and will not be seen in action till early 2024. However, we have midfielders like Jorginho and Mohamed Elneny, that have found games hard to come by, so I would expect Arteta to use them as the double pivot in midfield.
This will afford our defensive midfield lynchpin, Declan Rice, to get some well deserved rest, as Arsenal would need him to continue doing the heavy lifting with Thomas Partey’s continued absence. Having Jorginho and Elneny in midfield will leave the team bereft of creativity, so club captain, Martin Odegaard, will play the attacking midfield role.
Forwards
For some reason best known to Lord Voldemort, Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte, Arteta will always play Bukayo Saka, so there is no point writing about him getting potential rest. Saka himself is a beast, receiving knocks week after week and shrugging them off like its nothing.
However, Leandro Trossard will get some minutes ahead of Gabriel Martinelli, while backup forward, Eddie Nketiah, should get the punt ahead of Gabriel Jesus. We have to remember that Jesus is just coming back from a nasty hamstring injury, and it’s certainly not worth it risking him in such a meaningless fixture. Reiss Nelson will probably come on as a substitute for Saka after the hour mark.
This is what the formation should look like
Sayonara.
Follow Gooner Daily on Twitter @goonerdaily.
Visit Gooner Daily’s Facebook page.
Click on the “Follow button” to join Gooner Daily’s Mailing List
Leave a Reply