Arsenal: Mikel Arteta must address biggest blind spot against Everton with one eye on Real Madrid | OneFootball

Squad management is often pointed to as Mikel Arteta’s biggest weakness

In different circumstances, Mikel Arteta’s final trip to Goodison Park might have given some welcome narrative to a late-campaign game in a Premier League season fizzling out. After all, Everton, since re-appointing David Moyes, have pulled well clear of danger, while consecutive wins for Arsenal either side of the international break have eased fears they might yet be sucked back into the scrap for the top four.

The loss of Gabriel to yet another serious hamstring injury in midweek was the headline blow in a cluster of defensive issues that has left Arteta fretting about the kind of back-four he might be able to field when the Spanish giants come to town on Tuesday night.

The prognosis on Jurrien Timber and Ben White’s respective knee injuries sounded encouraging when Arteta spoke on Friday afternoon, though Riccardo Calafiori is firmly ruled out.

Jurrien Timber and Ben White may need a run out

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Whether Arsenal can afford to chance either or both of those players at Everton, though, is another question, and one of many moving parts.

White could probably use the minutes before facing Kylian Mbappe & Co., having started just one game of football since mid-November. But do Arsenal risk aggravating the minor issue that forced him out of contention for Fulham and could do likewise for Madrid if flaring up again?

Timber, by contrast, is not lacking for sharpness or playing time. On the contrary, it is something of a miracle that the Dutchman has played as much as he has this season, given he missed almost the whole of last term with a torn ACL. But if he is not risked either, then Thomas Partey will almost certainly have to play at right-back, with a knock-on effect on how far Arteta can rest or rotate in midfield.

There is also the question of familiarity: should both White and Timber be fit for Madrid, Arteta may prefer one of them at centre-back to Jakub Kiwior. If so, a dress rehearsal alongside William Saliba would be ideal.

Further forward, there is the small matter of whether to hand Bukayo Saka his first start since December, or save that for Tuesday night.

To start, or not to start, Bukayo Saka

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Squad management has not always been Arteta’s strong suit and is probably the aspect of the job for which he has been most personally criticised during his regime, with recent grumbles about a lack of transfer activity aimed more specifically at those above.

The hamstring problem picked by Gabriel against Fulham in midweek has fired up the same accusation that met similar injuries to Kai Havertz and Saka earlier in the season: namely that Arteta is guilty of running his best players into the ground.

Yesterday, though, he launched a firm defence, revealing he had left Gabriel out of three matches in December on medical advice when the player himself had been hammering on the door to play.

“I was very tempted on day six [the second game] to play him,” Arteta explained. “If I would’ve played him on day six and he has the injury that he’s sustained now against Fulham and he misses four months, (cut throat gesture) I would be hammered.”

That is the fate, too, that would await were just about any Arsenal player key to their Madrid hopes to go down on this farewell trip to Goodison Park, but particularly in defence. It has not been his style, but you wonder whether just this once Arteta might err on the side of caution.