Arsenal rotated heavily for their game against Brentford on the weekend, with Wednesday night’s Champions League clash against Real Madrid in mind.
Mikel Arteta looked to protect certain key players, with Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Jurrien Timber all left on the bench.
The likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Kieran Tierney and Ethan Nwaneri came in, and were ultimately unable to deliver the result the North Londoners would’ve hoped for.
Brentford held Arsenal to a 1-1 draw, leaving Arteta’s outfit 13 points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool with six games left to play.
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Micah Richards believes Aston Villa have greater squad depth than Arsenal
Arsenal were held to a draw against Everton the weekend before last, meaning the Gunners have dropped points in two consecutive games against bottom-half-of-the-table opposition.
Arteta made wholesale changes against the Toffees as well, and thus, these two games sandwiching the Real Madrid tie have ultimately deterred Arsenal’s league season.
Speaking on the Rest is Football podcast, pundit Micah Richards believes squad depth is an issue for the North Londoners, and that Aston Villa are superior in this area.
“I think the wider point here is Declan Rice pretty much plays every game,” Richards said.
“He got the assist for [Thomas] Partey. For Arsenal going forward, they need to be able to deal with domestic and Europe. What we’re seeing now is that they can’t deal with both.
“They’ve got really good players, and even if he tweaked two or three, it’d be fine. But the ones that come in, they’re not doing enough to get them over the line.
“I compare that to what Aston Villa are doing, you look at who they can bring on, they’ve got [Ollie] Watkins, if he’s not playing well, then we’ll have [Marcus] Rashford. Left-side, we’ll go [Jacob] Ramsey. If that’s not working we can put someone else further forward.
“We can put [Lucas] Digne as the left-winger or we can go [Ian] Maatsen left-back. Right-hand side you’ve got [Matty] Cash who can play in forward areas, you’ve got [Morgan] Rogers, then you’ve got [Youri] Tielemans, then you’ve got [John] McGinn, then you’ve got [Boubacar] Kamara.
“They’ve just got quality all over. The difference is when they come in, they’re performing. I’m not saying that Arsenal didn’t play well, they just didn’t put away their chances in important moments and against Brentford, you should be able to deal with that.”
Micah Richards’ point about Arsenal and Aston Villa’s squad depth doesn’t stand up to evidence
Richards claimed Arsenal aren’t able to deal with Europe and domestic football due to a lack of squad depth, but Arteta’s side are on the brink of the Champions League semi-finals and sit second in the league.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa sit seventh and are on the cusp of being knocked out of Europe.
The West Midlanders actually have a dreadful record in league matches that followed Champions League matches this season, winning just three out of ten that have come within four days after a European match.
This certainly doesn’t point to a squad that is adept at handling both continental and domestic football.
Arsenal also amassed 89 points in the Premier League last season, whilst narrowly losing to a star-studded Bayern Munich side in the Champions League quarter-final.
This shows that their squad is more than capable of dealing with both and that injuries are what have plagued them this season.
When any team makes six or seven changes for a Premier League match, they are bound to struggle somewhat, and that’s not to mention that Arsenal should’ve claimed six points from the last two games.
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