Mikel Arteta understandably fielded a host of questions about Arsenal’s injury issues at his press conference this evening, but perhaps more interestingly he was asked about rotation ahead of tomorrow night’s visit to Club Brugge.
It is a chance to rotate, given our Champions League record so far this season, and the boss insisted it was something he tries to do, but is sometimes unable to because of other absences.
“We try to have the freshness in the squad and the players in the best conditions to perform at the highest level,” he said.
“Obviously the fact that you are missing players, you are loading other players more. That is a consequence to that and it is a really dangerous circle that one.
“For example, Viktor’s injury, we were missing another two 9s [Havertz and Jesus] so Viktor played every minute since he signed, almost without a pre-season, and at some point he got injured.
“Then Mikel [Merino] had to do that role because Leo as well wasn’t fit, or Martinelli wasn’t fit and you could see Mikel at the weekend that he needed some help because he was out of gas.
“So that is the consequence of not having other players but the good thing again is the way we have managed so far to do that.
“We have now, after this, a clean week which we haven’t had for many, many weeks and hopefully some players back so that will be good oxygen for the team.”
There was also a line of questioning about Christian Norgaard, who hasn’t played a great deal since his summer arrival from Brentford, but Arteta put that down to his chances being limited because of the form of others and backed the Danish international’s contributions on and off the pitch thus far.
“I am really happy with what he has brought to the club,” he said, “especially to the team and every time that we needed him in many areas, not only in the pitch, what he has to do, he excels in the manner that we expected.
“It is very similar to Ben White or Myles, they haven’t played probably as much as expected.
“Sometimes when it is because others are performing at that level, I think it is positive for the team and a little bit more difficult for the individual but very, very positive for the team.”
Norgaard could start tomorrow in the absence of Declan Rice, and there are other changes in midfield and up front available to Arteta, although defensive numbers are quite limited with William Saliba, Gabriel and Cristhian Mosquera all sidelined.