He has not played much for Arsenal recently, with his only two starts so far this season coming in the Champions League and Capital One cup, but at least our club captain Mikel Arteta is fit and available to come in if we need him. And with the current injury situation at the club, the Spaniard may well get his first Premier League start of the season away to West Brom on Saturday.
Arteta is bound to feel a bit frustrated at his lack of game time but he is a good captain and knows that the success of the club in general is more important than any personal issue. So with the Gunners looking like we are closer to winning the Premier League title than we have been since the season of the invincibles over 10 years ago, Arteta knows that the manager must pick the team with the best chance of picking up all three points.
Unfortunately for him, as he is reported as saying by The Mirror, two of the three players that are most important to our title challenge play in the same area of the pitch as he would do.
Arteta said, “They (Sanchez and Ozil) are probably the most creative players in the team along with Santi Cazorla.
“They are the guys who can make the difference for us at any moment. Even if we’re not playing well, you know that they can always provide a spark and win a game for us.
“We need players right at the top level playing with consistency and these two give us that. We need to find the right balance in the team to give these players freedom on the pitch to affect the result.”
The boss will be looking for that balance again this weekend but will he see the club captain as one of the players that can provide it?