Arsenal will go to the St Mary’s Stadium to take on Southampton today with three key players missing, while Alexandre Lacazette’s availability remains unknown.
The Frenchman missed training on Friday for an unknown reason, with manager Mikel Arteta claiming that he couldn’t divulge the information. It seemed like it was more personal for Laca as opposed to footballing or fitness issues.
We remain without Kieran Tierney, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Thomas Partey this weekend. The latter now appears set to miss the remainder of the season despite Arteta claiming that he is working hard to try and make a return beforehand. The Scot is also expected to remain sidelined until pre-season, while we continue to wait on the Japan international. He’s only featured twice in 2022 thus far having agitated another injury amidst his initial recovery, but is believed to be close to being made available once again.
Predicted Arsenal XI:
Ramsdale
Cedric White Gabriel Xhaka
Odegaard Lokonga Smith Rowe
Martinelli Laca Saka
Arteta seemed positive on Lacazette’s chances of featuring this weekend, so we’re assuming he will get the nod over Eddie Nketiah. While we didn’t quite agree with Xhaka dropping in to fill the void at left-back, we imagine Arteta will have stuck to his guns and have been working on smoothing over the cracks which emerged last weekend, instead of ripping up the framework and starting again. Should he look to shuffle things again however, we’d be looking at Cedric to switch to the left, with White shifting to the right to bring Holding into the fold.
How do you expect Arteta to setup his team against Southampton?
Patrick
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Video – Mikel Arteta on the Southampton clash and our injury situation