Arsenal's bench was the strongest it has been in a while against Manchester City. No players under 21 were required to feature as Thomas Partey, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Fabio Vieira, Gabriel Martinelli and Oleksandr Zinchenko continued to return from injury.
But a key consideration for Mikel Arteta in the coming weeks will be precisely how he reintegrates the players in his squad. The Spaniard places great importance on relationships on the field and how they are influenced by the players around him.
We saw it at the end of last season and at the beginning of this season when he used Vieira as a left-sided No. 8 and paired Martinelli on the left wing, an idea he announced publicly in February last year. It was shown in
On whether he factors those dynamics into how many changes he makes from game to game, Arteta said: You can also affect things by just changing certain personnel at certain moments and observing how they play together and the amount of time they spend together. It also has to do with what they do in training every day. We will consider all this and try to find the right team to win.
“We've done both (many changes and not so many changes). Sometimes they've worked. Sometimes they're not very good. In some cases, those changes have nothing to do with it. Yes, it should have been the same. It's very difficult to predict.”
Luton Town's visit to the Emirates on Wednesday will be Arsenal's first of four consecutive midweek fixtures. Arteta needs to prove he can get the most out of his team here.
