Arsenal: 5 key players to see us through Bournemouth in FA Cup

Arsenal, Nicolas Pepe (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images)
Arsenal, Nicolas Pepe (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images) /
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Arsenal, Gabriel Martinelli
(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images) /

4. Gabriel Martinelli

He feels unusually far down this list, but part of that is respect for what we can expect him to do and what Mikel Arteta will undoubtedly be expecting him to do. He’s been a hero in two straight matches now, and he’s shown the ability to do the Pepe thing and change a match all on his own.

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That obviously puts him in a very high position to make an impact. In fact, so high that I wouldn’t even rate him as a top three key player simply because I’m starting to see a baseline of what he is capable of and thus his spikes of superstardom don’t feel so “we need him now”-ish, since it seems as though we’ll always have him.

Martinelli will be suiting up across from Pepe, which is a delectable combination that will ideally stretch the Bournemouth defenders so far outside of their comfort zone that we can engineer at least a few goals. Enough goals to keep the nervous sweats away.

One of the big questions is always who’s going to score the goals, and one of the top answers is always this man, Martinelli. But he won’t be the one in position to score the most in this match. More on that later. For now, let’s kick on to No. 3.