Arsenal vs Chelsea: You know Dani Ceballos is healthy, right?

Arsenal have a quick turnaround to face Chelsea, but if Mikel Arteta plays Dani Ceballos, he can do a lot of things right in one fell swoop.

Arsenal will travel to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea, just weeks after being robbed of a result when Jorginho wasn’t sent off for a second yellow card. Now we have to go to their turf, ten points behind them, and hope for better things to come.

Mikel Arteta has some tough decisions to make in turn of match fitness. We just played on Saturday and it’s dicey to expect everyone to be fit and ready for a grueling match here. Thankfully, we have some key players returning from injury.

But I only want to talk about one—Dani Ceballos. The Spanish midfielder was destined for great things following dominance at Burnley so long ago, but since then, inconsistency and a lengthy injury lay-off have gotten in the way.

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He’s back now, though. We haven’t seen him come on as a sub yet, but he’s back nonetheless, and it may seem dicey to start him against Chelsea for his first match. But the alternative is Mesut Ozil. And I’m not sure I need to say anymore.

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Ozil has had five matches no under Arteta. Three were solid. Two were not. This is going to be a high intensity match, the likes of which don’t often favor the German international. Rather than use the 4-2-3-1 at all, I would love to see a 4-3-3 with Ceballos, Granit Xhaka and Lucas Torreira all in the center of the midfield. If Ceballos wants to eke further forward, that’s fine and dandy, but here we have three effort-driven midfielders who can contribute defensive and provide a foundation to Nicolas Pepe, Gabriel Martinelli and the fullbacks.

It’s not even a matter of “giving up” on Mesut Ozil. It’s just knowing the type of match this is going to be. Sure, maybe Ozil can orchestrate a few counter-attacks, but I don’t see why Pepe or Martinelli or even Ceballos couldn’t do the exact same, with more contributions outside of that.

Besides, we really need to ascertain if he has a future at this club or not. My inclination is yes but we won’t know unless we see more of him, particularly in matches such as this one.

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He has to be eager to get back into the thick of it too. All signs point to a needed return. Now it’s up to Arteta.

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