Arsenal faced a difficult match in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals on Tuesday night, hosting German giants Bayern Munich at the Emirates Stadium. Anyone who witnessed the game would agree that it was an intense football battle between two excellent teams.
Fortunately, the game ended 2-2 after 90 minutes, with goals from Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, Harry Kane, and Serge Gnabry. Despite our Gunners’ admirable performance, Bayern’s composure was commendable; they didn’t faze in front of Arsenal fans who had filled the Emirates (Bayern fans were banned for that game).
That said, aiming for the win, Mikel Arteta made significant alterations to his lineup in the second half. Aside from benching Jakub Kiwior for Oleksandr Zinchenko, Arsenal benched Gabriel Jesus for Leandro Trossard, and Jorginho for Jesus.
Can we address Martinelli’s underwhelming performance last night?
After suffering an injury in Arsenal’s 6-0 victory against Sheffield at the start of March, Gabriel Martinelli made his first start against Bayern. Many assumed that the Brazilian, given his recent cameo appearances, was eager to impress. However, the winger did not live up to expectations. The 22-year-old provided little threat to Bayern Munich’s defense during the encounter, looking uninspired and toothless on the left wing.
I’d be surprised if Martinelli starts when Arsenal play next, given his performance on Tuesday night. In recent weeks, Mikel Arteta has been fielding Gabriel Jesus on the left wing, but after Leandro Trossard’s game-changing performance versus Bayern, I believe he should get a chance on the left wing in the upcoming fixtures.
It’s time for Arteta to be ruthless with his selection; Martinelli needs to fight his way back into the team. Trossard deserves to start; we see the Belgian come on and get into scoring positions every single time, while we absolve Martinelli of all guilt. That’s not fair.
It’s often perplexing why Gabriel Martinelli gets to start games ahead of Leandro Trossard, who is a far superior goalscorer and playmaker. Mikel Arteta should reward Leandro Trossard for his impressive performances by starting him against Villa; if he seizes the opportunity, he could be the one to silence Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena.
Daniel O
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It won’t work. Trossard likes to strike from broken play. He is often ineffective as a starter trying to break down a defense block. This Martinellii can do a lot better if he is fully fit.
Agreed Joe. S. Trossard has been far more effective coming off the bench since joining us.
@Joe, That’s not absolutely true if you carefully study the two players. Matinelli is ether extremely good on his day or extremely ineffective. And especially when returning from injury. Trossard is more consistent in his play. If selection is to be based on form I bet Trossard should be ahead of Matinelli.
But Arteta sometimes very rigid with changing his first 11. And seems to have sentiments for certain players. It was Jesus trickery and Trossard goal scoring skill that helped us not to lose against Bayern. Havertz wasn’t suited for such game as a No 9.
My hope is that Arteta’s inexperience won’t cost Arsenal semi-final ticket in UCL.
Simple facts are that Trossard scores goals, while Martinelli does not, at least not nearly enoiugh.
Given that our Prem defence is supreme and that often a single goal will win us any game, then scoring goals is VITAL , as we cannot ALWAYS rely on SAKA,nor should we need to.
So for my money, I WOULD play Trossard and not Martinelli, nor JESUS, who also does not score goals. And we need wins, not 0-0 draws, if we ARE to win the title. Reality!
The article writer writes truth therefore.
And who will do the box to box running which Martinellii is also often required to do. Definitely not Trossard. Truth is we need a Keiran Tierney type wing back to run the ball up the flanks and create space for either Martinellii or Trossard.
The reality is however that plainly, MA disagrees with you . And his, not yours, is the view that counts and has sway!
Trossard, since day one, has never been awarded a place in the team and a run, he deserves. Players (sometimes bafflingly) are afforded time, when they DONT produce. Trossard DOES. We lost the league last season because of poor team selections at the end. I hope, it doesnt happen again this season. Trossard, ESR, and Tomi, seem to be ignored for their efforts, far too much, at the moment.
It’s obvious that Trossard doesn’t thrive that much starting, he’s best position is occupied by Odegaard,
Smith-rowe is injury prone and needs to be eased in gently, how do you even expect him to play in midfield against Bayern, how?
I think Tomiyasu is the only surprise, I think Arteta wasn’t expecting Sane to be that effective.
ESR, has not been played. Im not talking about, only Bayern, Im talking about, any time. And Trossards best position isn’t taken up by Odergaard. Trossard has performed in many different roles and then dumped.
I think we ended the game with the line up that should have started the game and started the game with the line up that should have ended the game.
I’ve always been very critical of Arteta but this season he and the team have actually been better. The huge difference has been the improved level of maturity both on and off the field.
Taking into account that this was our first quarter final appearance in years, and that being against one of the tournament’s greats like Bayern, I think we did quite well. We totally bossed them in possession though slow and sluggish. But we had our chances which we didn’t take. Who would have thought years ago we would totally outplay Bayern the way we did? I think we actually let ourselves down and Bayern’s superior experience proved very valuable. This is unlike years past when big teams would dominate us and annihilate us. Regardless of if we qualify or not I think this has been a great experience for the team. So for today I’ll give credit to Arteta for a great job he has done and is doing so far.
Trossard’s technicalities gives him an edge over Martineli, Jesus holdup play is 2nd to none in the Arsenal team,
If Jesus started alongside Martineli, we would have seen the best of Martineli,
If Trossard must play, I think Tomiyasu would be in LB,
Bayern’s pace in transition from MF to AM was too much for us, if we can lock out Sane, we can beat them.
Not necessarily agree with the article. Martinelli has better pace and is very effective in counter attacks. He is just coming off a major injury and hence is a bit rusty and has not yet hit full gear. In the second leg against Bayern, BM will come out of the flanks full throttle and the pace of Martinelli will be important to hit them on the counter. Morover, Trossard is excellent as an impact sub and will be very effective when the Bayern defenders are tiring out. Trossard could surely start the Villa game to keep Martinelli fresh for the BM game. We can still beat BM in their backyard since we have the players both in attack and defence to do that but we have to be composed and clinical.
Martinelli coming off a major injury, I totally disagree with that. He was out for about three weeks or thereabout. I wouldn’t call that a major injury. Let’s face it, his form has been piss all season long yet he keeps getting starts after starts while the more effective Trossard keeps dropping to the bench. As someone pointed out earlier, Arteta is very rigid with his team selection and I hope that wouldn’t be our undoing this season. Nevertheless I agree with you that he should start the second leg though. We could be setting up for a mid lock, hence his pace could prove useful as you rightly pointed out
What a load of garage he scored a lot of goals as as a starter for Brighton started game against PSV and scored a similar goal as the goal against Bayern jesus assist
For me, Bayern was not fantastic to go home with a point. It was our players that played them with respect and gift them the two goals. If we play to our strength in the second leg, arsenal will return home victorious.
That said, I must commend Arteta for his prompt changes especially, Zinchenko replacing Kiwior unlike him. I observed that Martinelli and Saka are not fully fit. But, we must realize that, Trossard always perform better from bench. So I will recommend Jesus to replace Martinelli on the wing if Zinchenko must start. This is necessary so as to cover up the left back. Or better still, let Rice play deep to cothe central position while Meghales covers Zinchenko as he drifted to midfield.
The boys tried to at least level up. This is Champions league. You pay for every mistake. The boys paid theirs yesterday.
We shouldn’t mess with a winning formula (last night excepting) and as the highest-scoring team in the PL ought to stick with what we have. Martinelli will be OK, but probably for the Bayern return leg, he should sit it out in favour of Trossard.
Really, Trossard better than Martinelli?!! This is the problem with some of us, judging a player’s capability by a single aspect. It’s true Trossard is a much better goal scorer. But in a full match, he won’t have the pace and workrate to keep the fullback and midfield at bay. Unless he gets a goal scoring opportunity, he will be useless and will allow the opposition fullback more space. I think he could make a very good CF for certain opponents. Otherwise, I feel he excells as a super sub and should continue
Like last night?
It was his first game after recovering from an injury. Use the previous games to assess, not just yesterday’s
I like Martinelli but he doesn’t produce. Trossard does. Trossard is only behind Saka in this team for Goal involvements and he isnt a starter like Martinelli. Says it all.
Two thirds of Trossards nine goals have come from the bench. He’s much better coming off the bench than starting the game.
No he isnt, he has had no choice but to score those 9 off the bench. When he starts, he is not any different and I am 100% sure, he would have had even more contributions. Rediculous to say, he is better coming off the bench when players ahead of him who start, are not contributing the same.
Two thirds of nine is six, which is the number of goals he’s scored coming off the bench, not nine. He’s started eleven PL and scored three times. Surely that proves that he’s better coming off the bench, especially after Martinelli has done the business on the Right Back.
Yea martinelli is fast maybe he should be representing Brazil in the hundred metres but this is football and running along the sidelines until you run out of and at best winning trows and occasional corners is all he does
Please leave Martinelli he does a lot of work. Arteta must consider not starting Harvetz in games like the one last night and get Trossard in the team. If you were watching the same game i am sure you can agree that Martinelli would have been effective if he had played in a team that had Jesus than with no 29.Tomiyasu would have helped him play better.
The roule as super-sub make Leo Trossard lethal.
Let him keep playing that roule. Entering the game after sixty minuts he’s a 00 agent, with licence to kill. It’s up to Arteta to make Leo understand that the roule as goal scoring agent late in the games is as important as any other part. Even more important and valuable than being a startingXI.
Problem wasn’t 1 player, the problem was down to team mistakes.
Also thought Jorginho in midfield did not work, his lack of pace was glaringly obvious.
This performance was nothing like our recent outings. Far too sloppy, caught out too easily on counters, defense was nothing like our normal play.
Learn from the mistakes and we go again.
Maybe yes… but in the Champions League matches it’s a different story. There is no experience or performances from the coach and from these players. Arteta and Porto yesterday should have had Work on throwing the title of the favorite over us, to load it on the opponent. That way the people and the players especially would have less stress. What we saw in the matches with Porto but And yesterday is a product of fear from the anxiety of the favorite who loaded us and we didn’t take care to fly over ourselves. Our defensive function looked like it was possible to concede a goal at any time It is not normal for a team that has kept a clean sheet in the Premier League for many hours, keeping City to zero. And all this against a Bayern that recently grabbed five goals from Heidenheim. It’s unnatural, because this year’s Bayern is simply not Bayern. And yet with all this mistake yesterday we looked like a team of veterans.
After training has been conducted for our next Aston Villa home match.
Arteta will do the needful after he has accessed his players to start the Gunners team that he has vondidered the most suitable to start the Aston Villa match on Saturday,
in the Arsenal’s starting lineup for the match, us could see Trossard or Martinelli starting. But it’s all depen on who out of the duo RWs that he thinks the most suitable to start the match.
But by and large, Trossard is reknown for his being impactful to score or provide assist when he comes off the bench. While a fully fit and in top form Martinelli can impact very well in matches for Arsenal as a starter.
How has an article about Trossard and Martinelli turned into a rant about Havertz. Had Ben White finished the glorious chance provided by Havertz the game would have been finished in the first half. Martinelli has been poor all season long and deserved to be dropped. I would even go as far as saying his one dimensional skillset hinders our free flowing attack and he has no idea when to keep the ball and when to release it. Jesus OR Trossard for me on the left.
The only positive I’m taking from the game against Bayern is that we didn’t lose the game.