Arsenal will have a near-similar lineup to face Brighton & Hove Albion at the Emirates, with Leandro Trossard the only potential change in the setup.
Leandro Trossard clearly made a point after he came off the bench and scored with his first touch, which will see him drafted back into the Arsenal starting lineup against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday. Until that point, Arsenal were involved in a cagey contest against Aston Villa at Villa Park, with questions being asked whether Mikel Arteta’s side has the character to defeat their top-four rivals after they failed to do that twice last season.
Transfer deadline related questions dominated the pre-game press conference. Arteta briefly touched upon Trossard’s impact as well as the injury suffered by new arrival Mikel Merino right during his first training session. The Gunners boss also updated on injured duo Takehiro Tomiyasu and Gabriel Jesus, as they will miss out on the Brighton game and probably more.
On Jesus, Arteta said, “He’s progressing really well. He had a muscle injury, and he’s doing quite a lot of the stuff already, so we expect him to be with us really soon.”
As for the update on Tomiyasu, Arteta continued, “At the moment is difficult to say; it’s a bit slow the process of the first phase of that injury. It’s probably for the medical team to say more than that. He’s not done any training yet.”
Trossard, fresh from coming off the bench and scoring with his first touch against Aston Villa, did a ‘cold’ celebration. The body language expressed a sense of disappointment for not starting the game, and Arteta, after the game, did it positively. The manager had a few words for the attacker ahead of the game against his former side.
Arteta, on Trossard’s impact, said this, “Huge, and not only when he starts from the bench, when he has started games, big games. Last season, you look especially at the last quarter of the season. The amount of runs of games he had was huge, and he has been really consistent with his threat on goal, with his capacity to create situations and especially big chances. And then, without the ball, what he’s doing is great; I’m really pleased with it.”
Meanwhile, new arrival Merino was injured with a suspected shoulder fracture in the very first session of group training he was involved in. Further reports have suggested the midfielder might miss 6-8 weeks of action, although Arsenal are yet to release an official statement on the extent of the problem.
Arteta said, “It’s very unfortunate. Yesterday he had a collision and got a shoulder injury. He’s going to be out for a few weeks. It’s really bad luck and we were all very excited. He was looking very good, he landed on the floor, Gabi went on top of him and it looks like he’s got a small fracture probably. He was in so much pain, so we have to wait and see with the staff to do some more tests to have more conclusive answers.”
Coming to the team news, Trossard might be the only potential change to the lineup that faced Aston Villa last weekend. He will come in for Gabriel Martinelli on the left-hand side. With Merino likely to miss, Arteta will hope Thomas Partey keeps fit for a prolonged period.
Partey will sit at the base of the midfield, with Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice on either side of the Ghanaian. At the back, the same quartet, including Jurrien Timber, will start, as Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riccardo Calafiori will once again be options from the bench.
With Trossard set to start on the left-hand side of the front three, Kai Havertz will lead the line. Bukayo Saka will play from the right side, as Arteta will have some depth issues heading into the game. Deadline-day signing Raheem Sterling will only feature until after the international break, and by then, Jesus will be expected to return.
Predicted Lineup (4-3-3): Raya; Ben White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber; Odegaard, Partey, Rice; Saka, Havertz, Trossard
