Arsenal vs Leeds: 5 key players to keep Cup run alive
By Josh Sippie
3. Gabriel Martinelli
He’s back! I don’t know if I’ve been this excited for a player returning from injury in awhile. He has been tremendous this year, he was an easy favorite of Unai Emery (also, props to Emery for consistently using him) and Mikel Arteta will get his first chance to feel the magic of Martinelli.
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It was Emery who said that Martinelli doesn’t have a future as a striker, but Arteta has said no such thing, so I’m hoping that we see Martinelli returned to the striker role, where he has two goals and an assist in just two starts. His highest return of any of his positions.
Martinelli was just making headway into Premier League relevancy when this injury took him away from us. His confidence was flying high, so the objective here is to see him return to confidence, get back to goal scoring form, and remind us of what we have going forward.
Against Leeds, we’re counting on him to be the goal-scoring impetus, as I can’t imagine either of our other two strikers will be used in the starting XI.
On to No. 2.