Arsenal travel to Villa Park for their first away test of the 2024/25 campaign, a fixture that could give Mikel Arteta a selection headache.
The Gunners are hoping to seek redemption on Aston Villa, who beat Arteta’s side both home and away last season.
Like Arsenal, Villa won their opening day fixture of the Premier League calendar, beating West Ham at the London Stadium.
There was little to criticise about Arsenal’s opener against Wolves however, Arteta could be handed a dilemma to solve when selecting his starting XI.
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Arsenal must choose between Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard
While Arsenal’s display against Wolves was impressive for the most part, there were several talking points from the fixture.
One of which was the continuation of Gabriel Martinelli’s poor form on the left flank, giving Arteta something to think about ahead of the trip to Villa Park.
- READ MORE: Arsenal player ratings vs Wolves: 9/10 hero steals the show but 5/10 attacker fails to impress
The Brazilian’s quality dipped last season, with things not seeming to improve throughout pre-season or against Wolves on the opening day.
As a result, Arteta could opt to start Leandro Trossard on the left side, with the Belgian being one of the Gunners’ more clinical assets.
Added to that, the game at Villa is expected to be one of great difficulty, which could be eased if the manager set’s his side up to exploit one of the host’s leading weaknesses.
Mikel Arteta can expose key Aston Villa weakness
On the subject of the opening day, there were things for Emery to criticise on his side too, one of which being Matty Cash’s disasterclass at right-back.
The Poland international gave away a penalty at the London Stadium, seeing him collect some criticism on Birmingham World’s player ratings, where he was branded “clumsy”.
Cash is Villa’s weakness at the back and is not regarded highly when isolated to 1v1 situations, something that Arteta must brief his left-sided forwards on.
On the one hand, the Villa defender’s lapse in form could provide the perfect opportunity for Martinelli to refind his feet, with the opposing opinion being that Arteta must take no chances against the threat that Villa can pose and start Trossard.
What is for sure is that the Spaniard should start who he believes is his strongest left-winger to expose Cash, which will hand him a question to answer as to whether he can look past Martinelli’s recent woes.
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