Arsenal can be with out William Saliba for Sunday’s essential match with Liverpool on Sunday, stay on Sky Sports activities – so how huge a miss will he be?
The French defender was proven a straight crimson card for flattening Bournemouth striker Evanilson, because the Gunners went on to lose 2-0 defeat to the Cherries. The decision was upgraded from a yellow card after VAR Jarred Gillett really useful Jones overview the choice on-field.
A crimson card for the denial of a goal-scoring alternative leads to a one-match ban, with Arsenal not planning to attraction the choice, however that one match is essential as Arne Slot’s Liverpool go to the Emirates Stadium this weekend, stay on Sky Sports activities.
Saliba performed each minute of Arsenal’s Premier League marketing campaign final time period, because the Gunners registered among the greatest defensive numbers within the division final season.
Arsenal’s numbers with and with out Saliba are stark. Since coming into the workforce two years in the past, the Frenchman has solely missed 11 Premier League matches. Most of them got here on the again finish of the 2022-23 season when he picked up a muscular concern.
The defender missed the season run-in and Arsenal weren’t the identical defensively. Two-goal leads got away, so was an eight-point lead on the high of the Premier League desk, as Manchester Metropolis claimed the title once more.
Who may substitute Saliba?
Does Jurrien Timber maintain the key to Arsenal fixing their defence?
Saliba’s absence comes at a important time for the Gunners defensively, with Jurrien Timber’s health one other blow for Mikel Arteta.
The Dutch defender limped out of Arsenal’s Champions League win over PSG at half-time on October 1 and has not emerged since.
If Timber can return in time for the weekend, with extra data to be found after Arsenal’s Champions League recreation with Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday night time, then that might permit Ben White to play alongside Gabriel at centre-back.
White has performed the final two seasons as a right-back, however did associate Gabriel as Arsenal’s first-choice centre-back pairing throughout the 2021-22 season.
If Timber is just not obtainable, Arsenal nonetheless have loads of choices. Jakub Kiwior changed the opening left by Saliba in opposition to Bournemouth – although his slack backpass within the build-up to the Cherries’ second aim is just not very best preparation.
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Highlights from the Premier League match between Bournemouth and Arsenal.
One other choice to fill that gap in defence is to play Riccardo Calafiori at right-back, which was the change Arteta made in opposition to PSG when Timber went off injured.
However then Arsenal must discover a slot at left-back. Oleksandr Zinchenko returned from harm to sit down on the bench in opposition to Bournemouth, however his defensive skills have come underneath query for the previous couple of seasons.
One standout defensive lapse involving Zinchenko got here at Anfield final season, when he allowed Mohamed Salah to chop inside too simply and rating, as Liverpool pegged Arsenal again to a 1-1 attract December. Arteta could use that second as a purpose to not use Zinchenko if attainable.
Arsenal’s crimson card drawback – ill-discipline or dangerous luck?
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Sky Sports activities’ Sam Blitz goes by Arsenal’s crimson card report underneath Mikel Arteta’s tenure and compares it to comparable numbers to throughout Arsene Wenger’s reign however have been in a position to nonetheless achieve success within the League.
Saliba’s crimson card adopted sendings off for Leandro Trossard in opposition to Manchester Metropolis and Declan Rice in opposition to Brighton.
No different Premier League facet has been proven greater than two crimson playing cards this season, whereas Arsenal have extra first half crimson playing cards this season then the remainder of the 19 Premier League groups mixed.
“To get three red cards in the first eight games is really poor,” stated Jamie Carragher on Monday.
“But if it doesn’t change quickly, they’re going to have a big problem. Even though it’s early in the season, you don’t want to be three or four points behind Man City.
“It might be a scenario when it is a freak – three crimson playing cards in eight video games, it occurs as soon as in your profession as a supervisor.”
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Jamie Carragher says Arsenal’s crimson card depend has bought to cease in the event that they need to shut the hole to Manchester Metropolis and win the Premier League
Besides it’s not, as it’s not the one time we have now seen this sample with Arteta’s Arsenal. Purple playing cards do appear to return in bunches.
Firstly of 2022, the Gunners picked up three crimson playing cards in 4 video games as Gabriel was despatched off in opposition to Manchester Metropolis on New 12 months’s Day – earlier than Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey got their marching orders in both leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final defeat to Liverpool.
In January 2020, there have been two London derby crimson playing cards within the house of 10 days for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and David Luiz away at Crystal Palace then Chelsea respectively. On the finish of that 12 months, Xhaka and Gabriel have been despatched off inside three days of one another in back-to-back league video games in opposition to Burnley and Southampton.
It means Arsenal have picked up 18 Premier League crimson playing cards since Arteta moved to north London – considerably greater than every other membership. On high of that, the Gunners have acquired two first-half crimson playing cards this season, the identical because the remaining 19 Premier League golf equipment mixed.
However Arsenal’s historical past with Premier League crimson playing cards goes a lot additional again – proper again to Arsene Wenger’s days, when crimson playing cards weren’t so unusual within the Gunners’ ranks. So that is nothing new for the north London membership.
After Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996, his workforce averaged practically 5 crimson playing cards a season in his first six campaigns. Once they gained the double in 2002, they picked up six crimson playing cards that time period, together with three dismissals earlier than the beginning of November.
Throughout that double-winning season, Wenger even admitted his workforce skilled commonly in a form of 10 gamers, so excessive have been the probabilities of getting a participant despatched off.
Again then Arsenal’s red-card culprits have been precisely who you’d anticipate. Martin Keown and Patrick Vieira have been commonly down the tunnel prematurely, whereas Ray Parlour was despatched off twice earlier than Christmas in that 2001/02 season.
There was a well-known feeling throughout Arteta’s early years. Luiz was despatched off 3 times inside Arteta’s first two years in cost, Xhaka and Gabriel twice in the identical interval. It tended to be the identical faces.
This season, these culprits are extra unfamiliar. Rice, Trossard and Saliba have all been dismissed for the primary time of their Premier League careers. The latter had not even been dribbled previous by an attacker as soon as this season earlier than his sending off in opposition to Bournemouth on Saturday.
It creates the notion that Arsenal’s spike in crimson playing cards is just not an previous Achilles heel of ill-discipline rising, fairly the Gunners falling sufferer in unlucky circumstances to the elevated scrutiny on minor incidents.
