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.”