Mikel Arteta has spoken to the press ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League clash with Southampton on Sunday, and has admitted that he is unsure how to manage his squad this season.
The Gunners currently sit ahead of the chasing pack in the division, with a four-point lead over Manchester City in second, after winning nine of our opening 10 league games, turning heads in our direction.
With all eyes on us, people are trying to figure out where and when things will go wrong for us, and manager Arteta is unsure how to maintain his squad for the remainder of the campaign, insisting that the World Cup being mid-season means we have no idea of how to manage our personnel.
“It will depend on a lot of factors: how the players are performing, the injuries that we have, what happens in the World Cup; there are a lot of question marks that we don’t have the answers to,” Arteta admitted to Arsenal Media. “We are planning to have the right resources to continue the way that we are right now, but again, as you said, a World Cup like this has never happened. We have to all experience it and try our best to get the right outcome.”
The WC in Qatar definitely poses as an unwelcome distraction in what could well be a huge season for our club, but there is every reason to believe that the tournament could well hamper each of our rivals just as much as us. It would be easy to believe that Man City’s extended playing squad gives them the advantage, but you could argue that more of their players will be in action in the international competition also, which levels it out a little also.
Which teams do you think will be most obstructed by the World Cup this year?
Patrick
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