00:00A massive game in Arsenal season coming up this weekend as they travel
00:04just up the Seven Sisters Road to meet Tottenham in the north London derby and some major problems
00:08it seems for Mikel Arteta to solve before that game kicks off. His midfield is in danger of
00:14being decimated really, we know there'll be no Declan Rice for that game because of suspension
00:18and no Mikel Moreno this summer signing either, who was injured in his very first training session
00:23after joining the club last month. And now it looks as if Martin Odegaard is a significant
00:28doubt too, he was forced off during the international break with an ankle problem
00:32in Norway's win over Austria. We don't yet know the full prognosis of that but he flew back to
00:37London the next morning to have scans and if he is out then it leaves Mikel Arteta with a real
00:42headache. How does he fit around his midfield? Thomas Pate you'd think will keep his place at
00:48the base of it having started the first three Premier League games and then Jorginho who's
00:52not played a minute yet but was a regular really last season, he could well come in although he's
00:57not exactly a like-for-like replacement for either Rice or Odegaard, different type of player
01:02so it might take a bit of a tactical tweak maybe to get those two into the same team.
01:07And then the third slot you could move Kai Havertz deeper, that's the job really that he was signed
01:12to do but he's been so good up front since really sort of February time and it would feel like a bit
01:18of a shame to move him from that position and maybe the same goes for Leandro Trossard who's
01:23very versatile but has made a good start to the season on the left wing. There are a few wild card
01:28options, defenders who have played at midfield earlier in their careers but not really in an
01:33Arsenal shirt, you think of players like Ben White, Jurijan Timber, Alex Zinchenko perhaps
01:38and then there's Ethan Wanieri, the young academy graduate. Arsenal rate him extremely highly so
01:44much so that they allowed Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith-Rowe to leave the club this summer but it
01:49would be a massive call to throw him in in midfield in a game of this magnitude and it's not
01:54just that game either if Martin Odegaard is out longer term that gives Mikel Arteta a huge huge
02:00problem even as early as next week because they go to Atalanta in the Champions League on Thursday
02:06night and then it's to the Etihad to meet Manchester City so plenty to ponder for the Arsenal manager
02:11and we'll have to wait and see what he does on Sunday.
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