Mikel Arteta says he’s expecting “big things” from Gabriel Martinelli even though the player’s return from injury has been a bit stop-start so far.
Sidelined by knee surgery for the best part of seven months, the Brazilian featured in four consecutive games towards the tail-end of 2020, peaking with an all-action performance in the Boxing Day win over Chelsea.
There were fears the 20-year-old could be facing another lengthy lay-off when he turned his ankle in the warm-up prior to the FA Cup win over Newcastle, but he recovered within a few days. All the same, it feels like the short break, which saw him miss three games, took the wind from the player’s sails.
Against Southampton on Saturday, Gabi lasted 66 minutes before Arteta replaced him in an attempt to spark a dysfunctional Gunners attack. While the player hadn’t had the impact he might have wanted, at least he wasn’t injured.
“He was [physically] fine, it was a tactical decision [to sub him] and he is fine,” Arteta said afterwards.
“He has missed a few training sessions with the last injury, but I expect big things from Gabi.
“He has been really helpful since he joined again after such a long period, so I am positive about it.”
Arsenal return to Southampton tomorrow night and may well call on Martinelli to replace captain Piette-Emerick Aubameyang, who could miss out due to a personal matter.
“I don’t have enough information to see how things are evolving and hopefully things will go in the right direction,” said the boss about the situation.
Having been dumped out of the FA Cup by the Saints, the second clash with Ralph Hassenhutl’s team inside four days isn’t something the boss is relishing.
“I don’t think that any manager or players like to play the same opponent twice,” said Arteta.
“Obviously we will take things from Saturday’s game that we will analyse, we have already talked about them and will try to make them better in the next game. The one I really want to change is the result, because I want to win the game.”
Not too worried about him contributing
With his attitude alone he’d be sure to be a valuable asset. But luckily he’s got bags of talent too.
It’ll be interesting to see whether he ends up as a winger or a CF. With him and Saka in the front three and ESR just behind, we are one player away from having a seriously incredible, long term attacking team.
Could that fourth man be Odegaard?
Martinelli is in the mould of Alexis, Suarez type of player He’s an energiser bunny, high risk, high reward, sets the tone He doesn’t do safe, Alexis was a frustrating player, continually lost the ball, but for 2.5 years it didn’t matter, he’d chase lost causes, was a consistent match winner, capable of the spectacular, and pulled his team out of a hole on many occasions Pepe lacks the sheer force of will of Alexis, Martinelli of the other hand always looks up for it If there’s no Aubameyang tomorrow? I think Martinelli starts, even though he’s incredibly raw in… Read more »
I’d go Gabriel over Luiz, otherwise I like it
Surely it must be Gabriel over Luiz.
Pepe needs to talk with me…
Top post, J4H.
Liking your predictions.
With Tierney constantly overlapping, he’ll be more involved in play than he was last Saturday.
He worked well with Saka at wing back before as well if I remember right
But then we need somebody else on the right
I am sure Tierney can play as RW.
Tierney can do anything.
True, our best runs under Emery was with Saka and Martinelli down the left, or whenever Ramsey was fit. However, Saka’s too talented to be just a leftback, RW is a good place for him or CAM.
I still remember his goals in the Europa League when he came to the club. Goals will come.
Ateta shouldn’t be as comfortable on his job as he thinks. I’m still not over the fa cup defeat he literally threw away. And unless he wins the Europa League or make top 4 I will hold him accountable come end of season
If you can do that, without reminding us after every game, I’ll be all the happy for you. 🙌🏽
He must be terrified knowing that if it all goes tits up he’ll have you to answer to…
And how exactly are you going to “hold him accountable”? Are you going to fine him a month’s wages? Sack him? Give him a bad performance review?
Or does “hold him accountable” just mean you are going to moan on here some more?
We should go there with hope. We pretty much matched them with lots of players from our second choice team, so if we can play our best team we have a good chance.
They are missing one of their best defenders from Saturday, Walker-Peters, so will be weaker at the back.
We may well do it, fingers crossed…
and we will have our best attacking player – tierney back
I think they played a pretty strong squad where as we definitely did not… I’m feeling confident.
They’ll be without both their first choice full-backs as Ryan Bertrand is suspended as well.
We need 6/6 this week
3 points takes us above Southampton, but they’ll still have a game in hand
United fans are unbearable, knocking them back down to Earth with a bang, will be even more enjoyable than the 3 points
We have a good record against those lot at the Emirates. On form I’m not confident, but they are really due for a good slice of humble pie.
Martinelli is still 19, until he turns 20 in June
You’re 19 until you turn 20, that’s how it works…..
I’ve been 21 for a long time
My wife celebrated her 17th 29th birthday last October
Just curious to know what you guys think – why was Martinelli so ineffective on Saturday? Lack of service obviously but maybe lack of chemistry with Cedric?
He’d not played for a few weeks and with the team we had out no one really played well so I think it’s unfair to rate him on that game. Let’s see how he is tomorrow and the next few games.
One word: Tierney
Cedric was playing on the left.
he was playing with Willian, Pepe and Eddie. Has he been playing with ESR, Saka and Laca you would see him being much more effective. He was basically surrounded by lots of players out of form.
I agree with this statement – beyond players out of form, I think the style of players – Willian (the current iteration) Pepe and Eddie have their own major flaws. I don’t see anyone but Eddie fitting in long term at Arsenal. Eddie would be a great CF with a creative midfield… Would a front four of Martinelli, Saka, ESR and Eddie up top work in a year or two? Not sure.. but I have to believe it’ll work better than Martinelli, Willian, Pepe with Eddie up top.
Hey Eddie. You on Arseblog?
Yeah I’m not seeing it. For me his best performance is still that brace he scored on debut against Norwich. Which is a problem.
I don’t think Nketiah is the future. He’s a pure poacher, relying entirely on the rest of the team to put it on a platter for him. He can’t create, he can’t beat a man, and he’s easily muscled off the ball. I’d rather see Balogun on the bench tomorrow instead of him.
He’s got quite a solid all round game to be fair, and eddie is defintely a good passer of the ball, his link play is very good, and well that’s probably because he is arsenal youth. My worry with him is his ability to make a goal on his own, he might hassle defender into losing the ball but he’s not gonna dribble past a few players and bang one in the top corner, but he reads the game incredibly well, I’d keep him at the club aslong as he can handle being a squad player
Hitting Gym a bit more would do wonders for him, Balogun is scary good, if he was sitting on the bench every week laca and auba would be shitting themselves, unfortunately the timing for him might just be a bit off, and we will miss out, as painful as it is, that happens, this is professional football.
I think, hope, that we all are expecting big things from him. The elephant in this particular room is, whether we like it or choose to acknowledge it or not, is he going to stay injury-free long enough to show us all what he can (undoubtedly) do? I really hope so, but I just don’t think we can take it for granted at the moment. It really is taking one game at a time, as almost everyone associated with football seems to have said.
I am not sure why people think he is injury prone. He was sidelined due to a horrible tackle from teammate. That can happen to anyone ( even with the fittest player). Last time it was due to unfortunate event of ankle issue. Nothing suggests he is injury prone yet.
whatever is happening with Auba and I hope its nothing too sinister, I think it helps Arsenal in the short term. In that Martinelli can come into the first team consisting of laca, smith rowe and saka as a front 4. its not a slight on auba, more that these 4 all seem to thrive playing more intricate short passes. really looking forward to them playing together over a number of games, with KT working the left wing and partey controlling the midfield. by chance or not we finally have a plan and what looks from the outside as an… Read more »
It’s still not too late to bring in an experienced striker on loan.
We rely far too much on Aubameyang, and Laca, even though he’s having a decent season is hot and cold. Saturday showed, yet again, that Nketiah just isn’t good enough, at least not yet.
Sending out Nketiah on loan and bringing in an experienced goalscorer on loan would be a smart piece of business.
Agree, like Man U signed Cavani and Ibra before that.
Just give the chances to Balogun so we have a chance of keeping him.
We are already struggling with non-home grown players numbers. I really doubt a striker taking these slots is as much priority than a LB/RB or back up to ESR. We have Laca, Auba, Nketiah, Balogun, etc… I rather we focus on fullbacks or ESR back up
Nketiah as was lacazette will struggle without a 10 or a creative midfielder. The treatment of nketiah on here is so unfair. Not this moment but the general overall….
No it isn’t. He had a couple of decent chances on Saturday and completely fluffed them. He’s not good enough yet.
Strikers fluff chances, fans whinge, this is football. We should’ve sold laca when everyone was hating on him, then without him of recent we’d be a lot worse off, auba has been shit most of the season, i guess laca and auba aren’t good enough 50% of the time, hmm, maybe we should have no strikers or some freak of nature that never misses chances…. Giroud missed more than hr scored, but fuck would i love him on the bench now.
I’m seriously hoping we can complete the double over manure at the weekend, think I loathe them more than spuds!!!
Gauging love is a lot more difficult than hate. I hate them equally .. a lot. And I hate Chelsky too. Pretty much anyone the Arse happens to be playing as it turns out. Oh, and John Terry.
With Auba out or likely out we should have our best attacking 4 up top tomorrow. Cant wait to see if they can work the magic.
With Auba and Martinelli on that left hand side its just about the only position (bar CB) where we have some semblance of quality depth, as long as Auba can replicate last games previous form.
Suffice to say, I wet myself just thinking about him.
Definitely one to keep and develop.
If he can finally put his appalling luck with injuries behind him and get a decent run in the side, then the sky’s the limit.
Another one who could save us a packet in the transfer market, but Lady Luck needs to give the poor bugger a break and allow him to remain injury free.
He will be important for us.
feel he should be played up top.
Nketiah isn’t bad but we are expecting too much of him. He made some decent moves yesterday but just did not have sufficient composure. But Martinelli too had a great chance which he did not connect well enough.
This is just an issue of experience.
That said, striker-wise, its Laca till end of season and Martinelli with Auba on occasion depending on opponents.
Looks like Odegaard may go through. If so this is great news considering even if its just a loan till end of season. What it says of course about Real Madrid is another thing…and not sure if this has impact to Ceballos but we certainly need an additional creative shot in the arm to ESR alone. Also apparently on the cards Draxler still. Guendouzi swap. If so a nobrainer even if Draxler is a bit of a question mark these days, Guendouzi if reluctant best offloaded. May mean Reiss goes out on loan. I don’t see Betrand. Plus he’s 31yrs.… Read more »