Arsenal maintained a five-point gap at the top of the Premier League table with a 2-0 win at home against Brentford. They next head to Birmingham to face an Aston Villa side that has come alive in recent weeks and sits third in the table, with a chance to close the gap at the top to three points.
Despite Wednesday’s win, it was another injury concern for Arsenal as Cristhian Mosquera was forced off in the first-half with an ankle injury.
It adds to the growing list of injuries that the Gunners have faced in recent weeks, having lost both William Saliba and Gabriel.
Arsenal still has enough defence to be able to cope for now, and with William Saliba expected to return for maybe Aston Villa, if not, then definitely Club Brugge on Wednesday, it’s not an area of emergency, but it could become one with any more injuries.
Arsenal could line up with the same back four that ended the Brentford match: Riccardo Calafiori, Piero Hincapie, Jurrien Timber, Ben White, but Calafiori could also move to centre-back, which would likely see Myles Lewis Skelly come in at left back.
Mikel Merino continued his brilliant spell of form as a number nine with the opening goal in the 2-0 win, he also got the assist for Bukayo Saka’s injury-time strike, which sealed the result.
The Spaniard is averaging 0.40 non-pen XG per 90, which puts him in the top 1% of midfielders in Europe.
The two goal contributions against Brentford meant that he was up to 30 for 2025 for both club and country, which is quite something when you consider he only began playing as a number nine in February.
One of the arguments for Merino starting this weekend over Viktor Gyokeres is minutes, since the Swede returned after he suffered an injury against Burnley just before the November international break, he has only played 25 minutes in two games (18 against Chelsea, and 7 against Brentford).
On this basis alone, Mikel Merino will likely get the start while Gyokeres continues to build his minutes, and potentially start in Brugge or next Saturday at home to Wolves.
It was a solid performance from Martin Ødegaard managed to play 90 minutes in a league game at the Emirates for the first time this season.
Ødegaard completed 55/63 passes, an accuracy of 87%
He also created the most chances in the match (4).
When asked whether the captain could play three games a week after his injury, manager Mikel Arteta believed that he could.
“I think he’s certainly capable of doing that once the injury is resolved. You see the stats, what he did in midweek after six or seven weeks out, it’s incredible.
"We just have another player, another top player, that gives us a lot, gives us something different to what we have in those positions, so I’m very happy to have him.”