It’s FA Cup 5th round action this evening as Arsenal take on Portsmouth at Fratton Park. Having crashed out of Europe last week, Mikel Arteta will be looking for a response from his players tonight, but I suspect there will be significant changes from the team which lost to Olympiacos.
The manager spoke after that game about fatigue playing a part, with four games in 11 days, and with West Ham coming up at the weekend he’ll be keen to a) rest some key individuals and b) get a look at some of the fringe players in the squad who haven’t played a great deal under his watch so far.
First and foremost in that regard is loan signing Pablo Mari who arrived in January on loan from Flamengo. I’ve said this before, but I think it’s nailed on we sign him permanently, so bringing him in gives us one less thing to do this summer, but also allows us to bed him properly between now and the start of next season.
Arteta says he’s ready to play, and along with Rob Holding, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Reiss Nelson, he got 45 minutes under his belt on Friday for the U23s. So we could see his Arsenal debut this evening, in a back four which could have Sokratis at right back, Holding and Mari at centre-half, and Maitland-Niles at left-back (which is where he was used for the U23s). Unless Kieran Tierney is deemed fit enough and AMN plays right back, but it feels like the Scottish international is not quite there yet.
In midfield he can bring in Lucas Torreira and Matteo Guendouzi, there’s Joe Willock too, and up front Nelson, Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli would all be hoping to start. Arteta has to find some balance between rotation and a team strong enough to win the game, but maybe keeping some firepower and experience in reserve on the bench might be sufficient for this one.
You wouldn’t begrudge wholesale changes though, because some of the players who under-performed on Thursday night could use some competition, and giving minutes to the other players in the squad is the only way to properly assess their readiness. I’m curious in particular to see how Mari looks. The centre of our defence is an area that is in serious need of a rebuild. We saw some of the shortcomings of David Luiz again against Olympiacos; Mustafi was culpable for their first goal and I’m not buying this redemption as anything other than a short-term upturn his form anyway; and while Sokratis hasn’t come close to joining the S-Club of the Damned with Sylvester and Squillaci, he’s hardly one for the future either.
We have William Saliba coming in the summer, if Mari can settle in and show he’s up to the job, we potentially have some building blocks. I should mention Holding too, who has struggled for fitness since his ACL rupture and thus it’s difficult to make any true assessment of his form this season. When he has played, he’s looked like a man still impacted by the injury, and it’s not unusual for a player to take much longer than the prescribed 9 months to recover properly. The reality is it takes a lot longer to build form, fitness, confidence, match sharpness and all the rest – so while we need to take that into account with him, it does feel like he’s at a bit of a crossroads, and a good showing if he plays tonight could be very beneficial.
The FA Cup already felt a bit like the poor relation this season, which is quite something when the other was the Europa League. Nevertheless, it’s a trophy, one which has provided us with some amazing days in recent years, and which itself provides entry into next season’s EL which, like it or not, the club really needs.
Arteta has made it clear how much damage being out of the Champions League has done, and hinted at some difficult decisions that need to be made this summer because of the financial impact it has had. Thus, any pathway to European football is one we need to take seriously, and that includes the FA Cup.
Speaking about this competition, Arteta said:
It’s really special. It’s probably once of the nicest games and days of the season when you play the final day in England, at Wembley, nice weather and an incredible atmosphere. And you know, it’s a trophy that’s been very much linked with our history. So we want to continue to be attached to that, knowing that on Monday night in Portsmouth, it will be tough.
Portsmouth lie third in League One, and in tonight’s game are the classic underdogs/giant killers who have nothing to lose. Defeat means they can concentrate on their promotion push, and circumstances like this can allow a team to play with a kind of freedom that’s often hard to deal with. The job tonight is for Arsenal to counter that, to show they can cope with the disappointment of Thursday night, and qualify for the quarter-finals.
As ever, we’ll have live blog coverage for you tonight. Join us for that, and all the post-match stuff on Arseblog News.
Catch you later for the game.
