Arsenal has a chance to win both the Champions League and the Premier League. On Tuesday night, they will turn their attention to the Champions League. They host Bayern Munich at the Emirates Stadium for the first leg of their quarter-final match.
All Gooners would like Mikel Arteta to field his strongest lineup. However, with a demanding game schedule coming, the Arsenal manager must make some difficult decisions about who will play and who will not.
To make things simpler for him, I think he should consider benching these two players on Tuesday night.
1. Gabriel Jesus:
Kai Havertz, who has been fantastic leading the Arsenal assault, may have just taken Gabriel’s No. 9 spot. Since the March international break, he’s been playing from the wings; he’s shown glimpses of brilliance but has been wasteful; he does everything well but fails to convert his chances.
He could lead the assault against Bayern, but it would be ‘criminal’ to bench Havertz at this time, so the Brazilian should sit out. While Gabriel Martinelli has not started an Arsenal game since suffering an injury in the team’s 6-0 victory over Sheffield United, I don’t see why he shouldn’t start alongside Havertz and Bukayo Saka in Arsenal’s assault on Tuesday night.
2) Oleksandr Zinchenko:
As an inverted left-back, the versatile Ukrainian was a revelation, providing powerful attacking support from the wings to the midfield. However, teams appear to have broken his game and discovered a way to expose his defensive flaws. In a game like Brighton, they saw him as a weak link in Arsenal’s defence and chose to target him.
In a series of games following the winter break, Jakub Kiwior impressed at left back. While exhaustion may have caught up with him, he brought out another dynamic in Arsenal’s left wing that could be useful against Bayern. While playing left back as a traditional fullback, Ben White at right back dazzled as an inverted fullback, a tactic that helped the Gunners flourish. Arteta should bench Zinchenko in favour of Kiwior against Bayern Munich.
Benching the two, Arteta could field his strongest line-up to smash a Bayern Munich club that has provided the Gooners with disappointing Champions League nights in recent history, but it is now time for a timely revenge.
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