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LONDON — You need to be bold to win a Premier League title, take calculated risks at the right time. There’s always a chance that a well-intentioned gamble could backfire, but with Arsenal reclaiming top spot with a 2-0 win against Luton Town, manager Mikel Arteta was rewarded for rolling the dice.
Martin Odegaard’s 24th minute goal, followed by a Daiki Hashioka own-goal one minute before half-time, ensured a comfortable victory for Arsenal against Rob Edwards’s relegation-threatened team. But after making wholesale changes to his starting lineup in order to rest key players, Arteta was putting his team’s title ambitions on the line.
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Sunday’s 0-0 draw against reigning champions Manchester City at the Etihad underscored Arsenal’s status as serious title challengers and gave them crucial momentum in a three-team race that also includes Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
But with nine league games to go prior to kick-off and the first game of a two-legged Champions League quarterfinal against Bayern Munich looming next week, the heat is only going to intensify on Arteta’s squad and memories of last season’s slump — when the Gunners won just three of their last nine games to blow their hopes of the title — are still raw at the Emirates.
So Arteta chose to press the reset button and refresh his squad. Declan Rice, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli and Jakub Kiwior all started on the substitutes’ bench, while Bukayo Saka missed out due to injury. Thomas Partey was handed his first Premier League start since August, Emile Smith Rowe only his second league start since October and Reiss Nelson named in the starting side in the league for the first time in four years. Leandro Trossard and Oleksandr Zinchenko were also given rare starts.
The decision to rest Rice, who had played in every one of Arsenal’s league games prior to this one, was particularly risky considering his importance to the team since his £105 million transfer from West Ham, but with Luton battling for survival and without a win since the end of January, Arteta decided that this was the game when he had to take the selection gamble.
“We managed to rotate and freshen the team up a bit,” Arteta said. “Those who came in did really, really well. They made a difference. To have a squad, they have to play. We have to make those decisions. The contribution they make to the team was very good, but now we recover and go again because we have Brighton away.”
Considering Arsenal’s immediate fixture list, Arteta’s decision to shuffle his pack is understandable. Saturday’s difficult trip to Brighton is followed by the two games against Bayern, with a home game against fourth-place Aston Villa sandwiched in-between the double-header against the German champions.
Then comes three games in the space of eight days: Wolves (A), Chelsea (H) and a North London derby away to Tottenham. And if Arsenal eliminate Bayern to reach the Champions League semifinals, they face either City or Real Madrid in the semifinal first-leg three days after the clash with Spurs.
So from this moment on, Arsenal will have little time to come up for air. It will be one huge game after another. But while Arteta’s makeshift side was good enough to beat Luton, it is debatable whether the same lineup would be able to overcome stronger opponents.
Partey is still some distance from match fitness after such an injury-disrupted season and the former Atlético Madrid midfielder will struggle to be back to peak form before the end of the campaign. And neither Smith Rowe nor Nelson are good enough to be considered as game-changers in the biggest games. The same could be said of substitutes Eddie Nketiah and Takehiro Tomiyasu.
The depth of the squad is Arsenal’s Achilles heel, which perhaps explains why Arteta has resisted the temptation to rotate his players throughout this season.
Rice, Martinelli, Gabriel, Odegaard, Saka, Kai Havertz, William Saliba and Ben White have all made more than 25 league appearances this season, but with Champions League demands on top of Premier League requirements, they need to take a breather at some point. The majority of those were given a break against Luton and it paid off. They will benefit both physically and psychologically.
But with so many pivotal games on the horizon, don’t expect Arteta to rest his key players again.