Arteta can unleash £180m Arsenal midfield against Chelsea after injury boost

The start to the season couldn't have gone that much better for Arsenal. The Gunners sit second in the Premier League, unbeaten, and having just defeated Manchester City in the competition for the first time in eight years. Perhaps what's most exciting though, is that there is still so much more to come.

Ask any Arsenal fan and they would tell you the Gunners are yet to hit top gear this season. Mikel Arteta agrees. "It's the expectations that we created and the culture that we created as we want to win every single match," he told football.london last month. "We have won six matches, drawn two, won a title and it is not enough. We want to be better, that's for sure."

There have certainly been mitigating circumstances for that. The biggest of those is probably injuries. Having been able to name eight players in every one of his Premier League starting XI's prior to the World Cup last season, Arteta has not been able to field the same team in consecutive matches once this campaign.

Thomas Partey, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jurrien Timber, Mohamed Elneny, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice have all been out at various points this season. As a result the Arsenal starting XI has been disrupted. Nowhere more so than the midfield.

Last season Arsenal had a settled midfield three of Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka and Martin Odegaard. Xhaka has obviously left, but since his departure, there has been a struggle for consistency of selection. Kai Havertz, Emile Smith Rowe, Jorginho, Declan Rice and Fabio Vieira have all started matches in the middle of the park to add to the two remaining regulars from last season. With that in mind it's hard to really put your finger on who the Gunners' first choice midfield is at the moment.

Arteta though has already hinted what his preference may be. In the Community Shield against Manchester City, he opted for a trio of Partey, Rice and Odegaard. Of all the various configurations available to the Spaniard, this is the grouping that is probably most stylistically similar to the midfield that nearly won his the league last season.

As City turned up at the Emirates for the Premier League version of August's game, Arteta opted for Jorginho, Rice and Odegaard, but you suspect if Partey had been fully fit for the game after a groin problem, then he would have started instead. This allows Arteta to get three technically excellent players who are secure on the ball in to his midfield, while also adding Rice's bite and physicality further up the pitch.

If all three come through the international break unscathed, then you wonder if Arteta may be tempted to field this trio for the first time in the Premier League. He has had the option to in the past, but with Zinchenko out injured, the Spaniard opted to move Partey out to right back in order to recreate the Ukrainian's inverting impact. 

This time around, after Partey came through a pre-planned substitution while on international duty with Ghana, there will hopefully be nothing stopping Arteta from playing the midfield trio that he seems to love in the big games.