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Does the physical midfield battle against Bilbao mean a shuffle for Arteta?

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo It’s Champions League match day one and we find ourselves up against a familiar adversary from the summer friendlies: Athletic Club in Bilbao.

In the summer we saw an Arsenal side who swash buckled their way to a comfortable 3-0 victory at The Emirates with Big Vik also getting on the scoresheet in a game that we dominated from start to finish and it felt like the season was kicking off from that point, having seen a few difficult performances in Asia before that. Today of course will be much different and we will be tested in front of the Basque crowd a lot more than we were.

Arteta had his press conference yesterday evening and he spoke about how he lands in Bilbao whenever he goes to San Sebastian to see his family again, but that he’s never actually been to the stadium, which makes me intrigued to see what kind of reception he’ll get as an ex-Sociedad player. It’s the same with Zubimendi and Merino, who must be in with a chance of starting given that Odegaard hasn’t travelled.

Arteta went for Nwaneri in both home games when Odegaard came off, but in a hostile away ground, with a difficult opponent in the shape of Liverpool, he went with physicality in the form of Merino, so I don’t think many of us will be surprised to see the Spaniard. I suspect there’s also an element of ‘get one over an old foe’ and so for the Sociedad boys I think there will be a desire to get to that ball an extra step quicker perhaps, so that fire in the belly might give Merino over Nwaneri.

Personally I’d play Ethan though. I thought he was impressive against Forest, he’s quietly impressing in those central spaces and the drop down between him and Odegaard hasn’t been massively noticeable in my opinion. When Ethan got in to the team last season he stunned many with his goals, assists and his aggressive running and dribbling on that right wing slot. Moving him centrally means we’ve seen less of that, but he has still been a key trigger in our press, he’s covering ground and he’s keeping us ticking over. He’s not as obvious in leading the press as Odegaard is, he’s also not a guy who is an assist through-ball merchant, but I think his creativity outstrips Merino’s and so personally tonight I’d be going for the English under-21 starlet from the start.

The other questions will be how/if Arteta does much rotation. Kepa is from Bilbao and if we’re thinking about players wanting to impress, I wonder if he might start. It will be very unlike Mikel Arteta, but Kepa has clearly come in wanting to get game time. He’s not got it – understandably – so far as Raya is clearly entrenched as our number one, but I wonder if Arteta has said to Kepa and his representatives that there will be more game time than Neto got last season. He was essentially unused until the Champions League dead rubbers came along; I can’t imagine Kepa will be happy with waiting around until the end of the year to play other than one or more League Cup games. So maybe he starts tonight?

In defence we had the good news that William Saliba trained with the first team and whilst he’ll get his place back soon enough – certainly against City – given Mosquera’s performances, I wonder if Arteta might ‘reward’ him with one more start? If he does there’s few Arsenal fans who will have a problem with it I suspect.

Arteta was asked about rotation yesterday and he said we have players out and so it is becoming important, but as we’ve all already been talking about online, in our own respective Arsenal WhatsApp groups and in person in the pub, the depth in this team is scary and with Declan Rice rested at the weekend, he could come straight back in today with Zubimendi and provide that double pivot base we’ve been seeing. I suspect that’s why he didn’t play against Forest, because he’ll be starting tonight and against Man City, so that’s a big plus for tonight and it gives us a platform to build our play from.

Bilbao will be missing their main man Nico Williams who is injured at the moment, which is a plus for us, but there will be a battle that goes on in the middle of the park today and so we need to win that midfield battle against a physical opponent. I saw one article from the end of last season when Man United played them in the Europa League that said “Their style of play has almost always centred around bodies crashing into bodies” and “No team in La Liga is better at picking up loose balls in the middle third” – so we are going to see a team who are going to go hunting for that ball in the middle third. That makes me think that actually Merino might be preferred instead of Ethan, but I personally would like to see a little more creativity.

Athletic’s form is a little difficult to assess so far into the season too. They won their first three games and then have lost the last two, getting sucker-punched with an OG against Alaves, as well as a friendly over the international break in which they lost to Osasuna, which you can’t really read too much in to as some of their players would probably have been away with the national team.

But regardless of their form, this has to be the kind of game that Arsenal need to win. If we’re thinking that there’s eight games to play for and you probably need 16+ points to hit the top eight in the league, that’s five wins and two draws out of eight needed. That means you need to win your four home games and pick up one or two wins away. Getting one of those tonight would be a big win, a good start, something that really sets us on a good platform for the remainder of the campaign.

I’ll be watching it in Crete, but as always will be back to have a bit of a debrief on the game on here in the morning. Let’s hope we’re talking about positive performances and three points.

Catch you all tomorrow.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.