Arsenal: 4 vital backup players for the rest of the season

The strength of this Arsenal team, as Mikel Arteta has said on numerous occasions, is the unity. This is a group all pushing in the same direction, willing to fight tooth and nail for one another.

Aided in their quest to finish in the Premier League top four by – albeit undesirably – not having any other competitions to focus on, the streamlined group have 16 matches to contest left of the season.

As far as a starting lineup goes, Arsenal are strong. The back five has kept 11 clean sheets in the 19 matches since Aaron Ramsdale came into the fold, Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka are a solid double pivot and the attacking trio of Emile Smith Rowe, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are special young players.

Striker is what it is.

Arsenal: 4 vital backup players Mikel Arteta will have to call upon between now and the rest of the Premier League season

With so much between now and the end of the season resting on keeping that core in place – free of injury or yet more suspensions – those on the bench become important for different reasons.

That preferred lineup won’t be changed unless it has to. But even with just the solitary game per week there will be issues that force alterations (see: Martinelli) and then those in reserve will have to come in and share the responsibility, just as they would if they were to come off the bench.

Between now and May 22 the whole squad will get a chance to make their mark, with four in particular going to have vital roles to play during that time.

1. Rob Holding

One of the more interesting points to draw from the Wolves win was that from the 70th minute onwards Arsenal had 100% of their central defenders on the pitch.

That’s a bit mad, isn’t it?

Allowing Pablo Mari and Calum Chambers to leave in the January transfer window left Arteta with just three senior options for the position, and with Bernd Leno missing the Molineux clash having contracted Covid, it meant even young Zachariah Olumide Awe earned a spot on the bench.

The 18-year-old only recently earned involvement with the Under-23 side having started the season with the Under-18’s.

Rob Holding came on and put in an outstanding shift in the heart of the back five, and based on how 2022 has panned out there is little reason to expect he won’t be asked to perform another similar role at a later stage.

All it takes is a red card elsewhere or an injury or suspension to one of Benjamin White or Gabriel and he is straight into the team. Which side of the defence will depend on who is out, as when Gabriel isn’t around it’s Holding given the responsibility of being on the left of the two.

He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s going to play a key role this Premier League campaign – if he hadn’t already.

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2. Cedric Soares

The situation surrounding Takehiro Tomiyasu appears to have calmed. Since featuring in the Burnley match when he definitely shouldn’t have, he’s had three weeks to recover and finally has been pictured back in training.

But the calf problem he picked up at Elland Road has been troubling him since. That injury has been the same one keeping him out of action and whenever you aggravate a previous injury it’s cause for concern.

Hope is that he’s shaken off the problem fully and can go on another 15-game run in the side like he did earlier in the season where he starts every match. If he doesn’t though, and injury strikes again, the man to come into the side is someone fans have considerably less confidence about.

Cedric Soares’ performance against Wolves deserved the praise it got, and got more praise than it normally would have purely on account of the surprising nature of it. That’s a level he has to maintain whenever he is involved for the rest of the campaign, although history, sadly, suggests it is one he won’t keep.

Given Tomiyasu’s integral role in the side he becomes irreplaceable. Yet he’s also someone heavily involved in the physical side of matches and therefore always runs the risk.

It might not be the end of Cedric in the team just yet.

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3. Nicolas Pepe

The chances of seeing much of Nicolas Pepe between now and the end of the season do appear relatively slim. Barring any complications, the Ivorian will keep his place on the bench behind starting wide duo Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka.

But he will have to play minutes at some stage. He offers a goal threat unique to any other in the squad in that he doesn’t have to be playing well – he rarely does – to get in on the act in the final third.

Arteta has to find a way to get a tune out of Pepe. Looking at the situation now with Martinelli suspended and there being no other wide options to bring off the bench against Brentford, the odds are that some minutes will come Pepe’s way on Saturday.

Following on from that, there is still plenty of the campaign left to play and all manner of reasons will see some players drop out of the team, opening the door for the 26-year-old to make some impact.

Having enjoyed a fruitful AFCON on an individual level, Arteta has to get some minutes across his team to avoid there being an increasing gap in the squad between those with match sharpness and those without any at all.

Whether one or two rare starts or just 15 minutes at the end, we should expect to see more of Pepe than we had done before the turn of the year.

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4. Eddie Nketiah

There comes a point where supporters will have to stop talking about Lacazette’s lack of goalscoring threat. It is what it is. Significant emphasis is being put on it, yet no amount of concerned discourse will change it.

Equally, there is no level of discussion that is going to help him stop gasping for air after 70 minutes.

It was around this time in the Wolves match, like most other matches, where he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Arteta has found himself in these situation before and stuck with the captain, but even on this occasion he couldn’t allow Lacazette to stay on given how shattered he was.

The only other option in that moment is Eddie Nketiah, and based on Lacazette’s fitness levels he could be competing with Emile Smith Rowe for the most substitute appearances between now and the end of the season.

What Nketiah won’t contribute in link-up play and No. 10 style positioning he will have to make up for in penalty box predatory. When the chances fall to him – and they will – there can’t be any more Goodison Park flashbacks.

Whether we like it or not (don’t answer that) there will be a lot of involvement for Nketiah this season and his contributions will be playing a vital role. No doubt about that.