Scope for some change as Bayern come to town

Morning all.

We’re in Champions League action this evening, taking on Bayern Munich at home. As a game sandwiched between two huge London derbies, quite a bit of the discussion around tonight’s game has been abut prioritising the Premier League points. I do understand that, but I don’t think there’s any chance of wholesale changes to the team tonight.

There’s scope for some rotation, and I think it’s important that we do ensure that we use our squad as well as possible, but if anyone thinks Mikel Arteta is going to play a ‘second XI’ against Bayern, they don’t know Mikel Arteta. There’s some history with tonight’s opposition, old and relatively recent, and this is a manager that wants to win every game we play, so that will be reflected in the line-up. If Arteta and Pep Guardiola are often talked of in tandem because of their shared history, I just can’t imagine there’s any chance of him doing what his former boss did and making 10 changes, especially with how that turned out for Man City last night.

If it were me, I’d probably look at both full-backs as a way of adding some fresh legs, but I recognise that on the right, in particular, we have a player in Jurrien Timber who, if you are picking a team, is very hard to leave out. He’s in such good form at the moment, perhaps as good as any full-back in the world right now, and he’s not just good defensively, but has added attacking levels to his game this season.

Then again, if you want him fresh for Chelsea on Saturday, having Ben White at your disposal isn’t bad at all. On the other side, Myles Lewis-Skelly must be champing at the bit for some playing time. The manager had no compunction in using him against Atletico Madrid, where he played really, really well, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see at least one of him and White in the starting line-up. At centre-half, Piero Hincapie did very well in the North London derby, and unless there are some physical issues to contend with, chances are he’ll start again tonight. If not, Cristhian Mosquera awaits his chance alongside William Saliba.

Martin Odegaard is back in training, but whether he’s ready to start remains to be seen. On the returning players, Arteta said in his press conference:

we have to look at the individuals  and make sure that they are ready to start a game like this. and the second one as well is for how long they can play. We need to be very mindful about how many of those players we put on the pitch because most of them might not be available to finish 90 minutes, so we need to be conscious about the subs that we need to use, how we’re going to use it, the windows that we have, in order to be very efficient with our decision-making throughout the game, and we’ll plan in regards to that.

Which does make it sound like we might see some involvement from the captain, as well Gabriel Martinelli and Noni Madueke – who were both on the bench on Sunday, with the latter playing the final few minutes – but whether it’s from the start or not remains to be seen. Arteta spoke about Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz needing further scans to assess their return dates, so whether that’s a bit of pre-game obfuscation or downright honesty, we’ll find out later on I guess. My guess it will likely be the same front three that caused Sp*rs so many problems, with the same midfield three behind them.

And on how he views tonight, he said:

We have the same intention to win it. This is the kind of game in the competition that we want to face, and we’ve been very consistent in both competitions; they have been as well, and tomorrow is a great test for us to see where we are.

I do think there’s something deliberate in the use of that word ‘test’. We didn’t beat Bayern at home last time we played, and lost 1-0 away in our first season back in the Champions League. This is probably a better team with a deeper squad, and I’m absolutely sure it’s a game Arteta is desperate to win. Not just for the sake of the points at this stage, but to send another little message about the stature of his side and this club right now, and to demonstrate continued progress since they came out on top in our last encounter.

It won’t be easy, Bayern’s record this season is P18, W17, D1, and while you might say they’re not as regularly tested in the Bundesliga as we are in the Premier League, they’ve beaten Chelsea and PSG in the Europe this season, the latter with 10 men for an entire half too, so this will be a challenge. Still, we go into it off the back of a brilliant North London derby performance, and hopefully we can carry further momentum into Sunday’s visit to Stamford Bridge.

As ever, we’ll have live blog coverage for you, as well as all the report, reaction, player ratings and more on Arseblog News. For now have a good one, and I’ll catch you a bit later for the game.

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