It should be Eze on the left as Forest visit

Morning.

An early kick-off means a quick early preview of our game against Nottingham Forest. There was some unexpected good news from Mikel Arteta in his press conference as he revealed William Saliba was back in training, far earlier than had been previously expected or reported. He said:

Wilo trained today, so we’ll have a decision to make whether we play him or not, it’s very good news.

There’s a Champions League game on Tuesday, and a big encounter with Man City next weekend, and I think I’d err on the side of caution with Saliba to make sure he’s available for that one in particular. But, Arteta and the medical staff have more info than I do, so let’s see what happens today. It’s not to take anything for granted, but with the squad we’ve built this summer, isn’t this exactly the kind of game where you can eliminate any risk over such an important player and use new signing Cristhian Mosquera alongside Gabriel?

The manager also has Ben White at his disposal too so he or Jurrien Timber could be another option at centre-half. We already took a risk with Saliba at Anfield by playing him when we knew he’d turned his ankle in the warm-up, and that didn’t pay off. We have a big squad now, let’s use it.

Beyond that, it’s further forward where the other big decision is, and that’s who starts on the left. I hope it’s Eberechi Eze, which would mean the team lines up something like this: Raya, Timber, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori, Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard, Eze, Madueke, Gyokeres. 

We’ve talked a lot about how Eze on the left probably requires something different from the left-back, so let’s see how that plays out. Again, Arteta has options there, with new man Piero Hincapie available too, but unlikely to start having only had two training sessions. Calafiori has been in good form so far, the Arsenal player of the month for August, so I expect him to continue in the team. Eze likes to come inside into more central areas, that leaves room for the Italian to overlap, and he’s got good delivery from wide positions, so I’m curious to see how that plays out.

There’s also going to be a very strong bench, with players like Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard, Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Merino etc, who can offer goal threat if we need it. The reality is that the number of players available means one or two aren’t even going to make the bench, which is going to be a problem/challenge for the manager, but it’s one I’m sure he’d prefer to have than last season where there simply wasn’t the quality at his disposal for too many games.

As for Forest, they’re now managed by Ange Postecoglou but he’s hardly had any time with the players so it’s hard to know how they’re going to approach this. Last season their success was built on games which saw them have minimal possession but focused a lot on a very effective counter attack. Away against Arsenal feels like one of those where it would make sense to lean into that for the new manager. Arteta says:

The moment the game starts, after five minutes, we will see very clear behaviours, what they want to do, and that’s what we have prepared.

I think this is one of those games where we will have a lot of the ball, and as a consequence Forest will play deep in their own half. It’s been a bit of an Achilles heel at times, and as much as the conversation has been about how we play to the strengths of our new striker, we also need Viktor Gyokeres to be able to deliver in games like these. Hopefully today is one of those days.

Right, I’ll leave it there. As ever, we’ll have live blog coverage for you, and you can find all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News. There’s a preview podcast over on Patreon now too, so get stuck into that before kick-off if you fancy.

Come on you reds!

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