Arsenal are facing a bit of a nightmare in midfield this weekend as they will quite likely have to take on rivals Tottenham in the North London Derby without both Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard.
Rice was already set to miss this game due to the suspension he picked up from his bizarre red card in the 1-1 draw against Brighton before the international break, and now Odegaard’s fitness looks a real worry after he went off with an ankle injury in Norway’s game against Austria last night.
This surely doesn’t leave Mikel Arteta with much choice other than to move Kai Havertz back into midfield, with the Germany international showing in the past that he’s capable of filling in there, even if his best performances for the Gunners have mostly come up front.
See below for a full line up of how we expect Arsenal to line up for the trip to Spurs this Sunday, if Odegaard indeed doesn’t make it back…
Havertz should still be able to influence the game well in Odegaard’s attacking midfield role, though he’s a very different kind of player to the Arsenal captain, so they’ll find it hard to replace that creativity and vision from the middle of the park.
This also means Leandro Trossard will most likely start as the central striker, as Gabriel Jesus has been injured recently and there doesn’t seem to be any particularly concrete update on his return.
While it’s far from ideal for Arsenal, it’s still a pretty strong team, with Thomas Partey and Jorginho remaining strong options in the middle of the park, even if they’d possibly both have found themselves on the bench if all other options had been available, including summer signing Mikel Merino, who is yet to play for the club after getting injured almost straight away after joining from Real Sociedad.
Arsenal’s squad depth is pretty decent, and overall they should still have more quality on the pitch than their opponents Tottenham, even if derby matches like this are often unpredictable and more chaotic than one might expect them to be on paper.