We are in the third round of the FA Cup this afternoon and visit Fratton Park to take on Portsmouth. There is plenty of room for Mikel Arteta to rotate his side, except at the back, where injuries to Piero Hincapie, Riccardo Calafiori and Cristhian Mosquera leave us a bit short.
I expect Myles Lewis-Skelly to come in at left back and Ben White to start at the other end, but in the middle – unless the manager does something like play Christian Norgaard at centre-back – he can’t do much other than play William Saliba and Gabriel. He could potentially consider 16-year-old Marli Salmon as an option, but I’d be surprised and imagine we’ll see some sort of timeshare job at centre-backs.
In midfield, and with Chelsea coming up in midweek, I think he should at least rest Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi, and I think we’ll see Martin Odegaard drop out too. In that, he has Norgaard (assuming he isn’t needed at the back), Mikel Merino, Eberechi Eze and Ethan Nwaneri at his disposal, so there’s no need to play anyone from that trio that has started most of the games lately.
Up front I think we’ll see Noni Madueke on the right, Gabriel Martinelli on the left, and if I were you I’d start Gabriel Jesus up front. He got the nod in the last cup match against Crystal Palace, and while you could argue that Viktor Gyokeres could do with some confidence boosting with some goals, this match is an opportunity to manage the side, so giving Jesus more minutes and getting him closer to match fitness seems like a sensible move. There’s always room for Gyokeres to show up later if you want.
That said, the possible inclusion of Kai Havertz in the squad could be an obstacle to the Swede getting substitute minutes. If there is an opportunity to get Havertz back into action with 20/30 minutes off the bench, I think that would be generally more useful than Gyokeres scoring a goal against a Championship side. I think we need to prioritise, and for me adding a new striker to our ranks who can contribute for the rest of the season is much more important than a struggling summer signing who scores a goal or two who will more or less be dismissed by the opposition anyway.
Portsmouth are having a difficult season, they are fourth from bottom in the Championship and only Sheffield Wednesday’s bottom side have scored fewer goals this season. I don’t know what to expect from them in terms of formation, but I think it will be a low block to start with, with the hope that if they can frustrate Arsenal for a while, the chances of an upset increase. However, with the quality we have on the pitch and on the bench, this should be a routine afternoon. You never take anything for granted, the magic of the cup and all that, but it would be nice if Arsenal – after some stressful games lately – could do this in a relatively easy way and we could enjoy a nice afternoon of football.
As always, we will live blog coverage for you, all the post-game stuff Arseblog newsand there is even one preview podcast on Patreon if you need something to listen to in the meantime.
For now, enjoy, and I’ll see you later for the game.
#Room #rotate #visit #Portsmouth #cup