Arsenal face Leicester City on Saturday afternoon, but how many changes should Mikel Arteta make to the side that started the 4-2 win over Aston Villa?
Arsenal returned to winning ways against Aston Villa and their next task is to leave the King Power Stadium with all three points on Saturday to remain top of the Premier League table.
Leicester City are the Gunners’ final opposition of a month that hasn’t been too kind to them. Mikel Arteta’s side began February with a defeat away at Everton which was followed up with a controversial draw at home to Brentford before they slipped to second place in the table after losing to Manchester City.
But despite dropping eight points, the north London outfit know they will enter March as Premier League leaders by completing the double over the Foxes having won the reverse meeting between the two sides 4-2 at the Emirates Stadium in gameweek two of the season.
This weekend’s fixture marks Arsenal’s first of seven in the space of 22 days and it’s almost a guarantee that Mikel Arteta will look to freshen things up where he can. Although, with a decent amount of rest time since coming from behind to beat Aston Villa, it could be that the Spaniard resists the temptation against Leicester.
With that said, there is a scenario where the Gunners manager is presented with a team selection dilemma with the return of an influential senior player for the trip to the King Power, whilst another could be recalled following an impressive individual performance at Villa Park.
So, as Mohamed Elneny is a confirmed absentee and the fact that Gabriel Jesus is unlikely to return despite some brilliant fan theories, football.london takes a look at the changes Arteta could make to either his starting XI or matchday squad as Arsenal face Leicester away from home on Saturday.
Thomas Partey has missed Arsenal’s last two games with a muscle problem. He was assessed ahead of the Aston Villa fixture but ultimately it was decided that he shouldn’t be risked and he was left out of the matchday squad altogether with Jorginho filling in once again.
The Italy international certainly didn’t let anyone down with his performance at Villa Park as it was his strike that resulted in the Gunners benefitting from Emiliano Martinez’s own goal to take the lead in the third minute of injury time and was widely praised by Arteta.
“I certainly didn’t see that quality of him – scoring from deep. The biggest quality he has is that he makes other people look better, better than what you actually are,” the Spaniard said afterward. “He’s made a huge impact already on the boys and the staff and hopefully our fans. I hope people can see that because I thought he was tremendous today.”
An indication as to whether Partey will be in contention to face Leicester should come later in the week if he trains and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he replaces Jorginho at the base of Arsenal’s midfield, especially as Arteta has relied heavily on the Ghana international so far this season.
Martinelli recalled as Trossard misses out
Against Aston Villa, Leandro Trossard made his first start for Arsenal in the Premier League since his £21m arrival from Brighton & Hove Albion in the January transfer window and at the expense of Gabriel Martinelli, who as adamantly put by Arteta, wasn’t ‘dropped’ from the starting line-up.
“It’s not dropping him! He’s played every single minute. You don’t see players at his age doing that. We have three 21-year-olds leading the front line,” he said. “It’s unheard of. Leo (Trossard) has been doing really well and we needed impact. I was really worried about the last 25 minutes of this game after everything that we put on Wednesday. We needed energy and we needed a player that could do that. I thought we did it.”
To come off the bench and score (as well as claiming a pre-assist for the own goal) was the perfect response from Martinelli to being left out of a Premier League starting line-up for the first time this season and one would imagine the reward is an immediate recall vs Leicester.
