Arsenal legend Ian Wright has now revealed his most pressing concern about Mikel Arteta’s squad.
Arsenal are in fine form right now, certainly in Premier League terms.
The Gunners have won their last six league games on the bounce, scoring 25 goals in that period and conceding just three times. From an attacking perspective, Mikel Arteta has found new solutions to the problem of being without the injured Gabriel Jesus. Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz have both led the line excellently at times.
Meanwhile, Bukayo Saka has been in a prolific mood. The 22-year-old winger has scored seven goals in his last five league outings. Against Newcastle United last time out, Saka became the first Arsenal player since Olivier Giroud in 2015 to achieve one personal Premier League goalscoring feat.
The north London club have been equally impressive at the back. The stats show that Arsenal have the most solid defence in the Premier League, on current form, by quite some margin.
There are also plenty of reasons for Arteta to be happy with what he is seeing from his team in the middle of the park. Jorginho wowed Arsenal fans when he returned to the starting XI to face Newcastle on Saturday night. The veteran Italy international is the perfect foil for Declan Rice, freeing up the former West Ham United man to station himself higher up the pitch.
Ian Wright admits one pressing Arsenal concern
However, despite this litany of positives, iconic former Arsenal striker Ian Wright does still harbour one fear. Speaking on his Wrighty’s House podcast, he said, “one thing that does worry me about us, more than anything else, is our bench…It’s important to get them [injured players] back, because I’m worried about what we’ve got right now…Going back to Porto, I was desperately looking at the bench, and I didn’t see anything that I thought ‘yeah, okay, get him on.’ Listen, that’s my little bit of a dig at anything.”
Arsenal are currently without Jurrien Timber, Thomas Partey, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu, and Jesus due to injury. Without these players to call upon, Arteta has often had to bolster the options available to him on the bench with young prospects plucked out of the club’s Hale End academy system.
There are areas of this Arsenal squad that lack strength in depth. For this reason, the loss of certain key players to a significant injury would likely trigger a critical failure as far as the Gunners’ title challenge is concerned.
After all, this what happened last season. The loss of William Saliba to injury ahead of the run-in sparked the collapse of Arsenal’s title bid.
Wright, Arteta, and every Arsenal fan will be desperately hoping that a similar fate does not befall the club this season. The Spanish coach will also be impatient for some of his sidelined stars to make a return to action.
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