Mikel Arteta has been told he can fit in Gabriel Martinelli in his starting XI if he deploys a 4-3-3 formation for Arsenal’s match against Crystal Palace.
The Brazilian has been struggling to play for the Gunners in this campaign after failing to impress in their first two league matches of the season.
Martinelli remains one of the most talented players in their squad, yet Arteta has fielded Emile Smith Rowe as a left-wing forward instead of him.
Umar Choudhry of The Arsenal Way Podcast is a fan of the Brazilian and fears that he could leave the club if Arteta continues to ignore him.
He also thinks that a change of formation could help bring him back inside the team as one of the key players.
Choudhry admits the Brazilian hasn’t taken the opportunities that have been given to him so far and he needs to do that.
He then suggested that he could be handed another chance to impress the Gunners if Mikel Arteta plays a 4-3-3 formation against Palace after the international break.
“We’ve been speaking a lot about Martinelli over the last few weeks and obviously there’s been links to Raheem Sterling, links to other potential attacking players like Noa Lang,” Choudhry said as quoted by Football London.
“With Martinelli he’s at that time in his career where he’s obviously had opportunities at the start of the season and he didn’t take them, that was obvious.
“I think he needs to take his opportunity, say after the international break Arteta goes 4-3-3 against Palace, Smith Rowe and Odegaard play in front of [Thomas] Partey, there’s a position on the left-hand side possibly and that if an opportunity was to go to Martinelli he would need to take it because Arteta I don’t think rates him a lot because he’s not been showing it in terms of picking him in games, even when needed off the bench he picked Ainsley Maitland-Niles when we needed a goal.
“I think it’s starting to get to that time where if there’s an opportunity to come if we have players who need a rest, if we get an injury to someone and there’s an opportunity for Martinelli he’s at that time where he needs to take it, he’s a great player, got great potential but we’ve seen in the past potential doesn’t mean everything in terms of football.
“We’re coming up to a time where if Martinelli has an opportunity he needs to take it because our squad we have a lot of attacking players and attacking quality, hopefully, he can take his chance because I really rate him highly.”
Arteta goes with a 4-2-3-1 formation to shield the defence more, so unless Saka or ESR are given a break, I dont see Martinelli playing soon, unless he plays the CF position. Also Martinelli will get his chances in the League Cup and FA Cup and if we progress to Europe next season, there will surely be more playing time for him, even in the PL.
MA can work on integrating him in the side during the break. He is maybe a bit better than Aubameyang and Lacazette when it comes to headers, although his weak foot ability is seemingly lacking.
With him playing in the qpr friendly, anyone know who were the scorers?
Martinelli will leave and it will haunt us just like gnabry did
In a 4-3-3 set up you could not use ESR and Odegaard ahead of Partey as they are basically both attacking midfielders.The system is more effective with a dedicated DM supported by 2 box to box midfielders as used by Livepool and Man City.Partey would simply be overrun without ball winning support in midfield. Quite frankly, I feel Edu and Arteta have erred in signing Odegaard who ,despite working hard, is poor defensively and lacks pace with and without the ball.I hope he goes on to prove me wrong but I doubt if he will.
Grandad, I think it too early to be sure but I also harbour distinct doubts about the long term PREM effectiveness of Odegaard as he DOES lack pace AND physicality. I do not see MA ditching him though. AT LEAST NOT ANYTIME SOON, whatever you and I may think
I believe MARTINELLI would give us far more physical effort then Auba too.
To my mind, such relentless physical effort – which MARTINELLI GIVES US – is a VITAL need from every player.
This is the reason I was so against both Walcott and esp against Ozil.
To me, lazy players who coast are a liability and no would be successful team can afford to ever play them.
As such, I would not play Auba at all, injuries permitting, and would give Martinelli an extended run in his place.
I agree.Auba has been very disappointing so far this season and does not justify a first team place in my opinion.
Let’s face it Arteta’s transfer decisions suggest that he’s nowhere close to transforming our base 4-2-3-1 into a far more offensively-minded 4-3-3…there’s simply nowhere to hide the flaws of his predominantly negative tactics of this manager within a forward-thinking 4-3-3
I honestly feel that unless several injuries occur, knock on wood that this isn’t the case, that Marts will have to leave to get significant minutes, for whatever reasons, petty or otherwise…I likewise believe that Saliba, Guendo, Mavro and likely Azeez will never don the kit with this manager at the helm
furthermore, minus the adjustments Arteta made at Brighton, when he took Ode off, far later than his play warranted, and rightfully placed ESR in the middle of the pitch, the shoehorning of ESR out wide will ultimately lead to him being sold off as he’s simply not good enough as a wide side player to justify his constant inclusion…now, of course, I’m certainly not slagging ESR, as I rate him higher than Ode, but the fact remains that if Arteta maintains our current base formation, moving forward, and Laca/Eddie are replaced with a more traditional target man, it would make no sense to not play Auba or Pepe or Saka in this position, especially if were unable to offload Auba’s financially arduous contract and/or sell off Pepe in the off-season
Arteta most go, go for Conte. Arsenal has alot of players but Arteta is too small for the team.