'HE WELL FUNCTION WELL THERE':Ian Wright identifies Lewis-Skelly's best position after early substitution in PSV victory

Ian Wright praised Myles Lewis-Skelly’s versatility following Arsenal’s resounding 7-1 victory over PSV Eindhoven, but predicted the youngster will eventually make the No.8 role his own.

Lewis-Skelly returned to Mikel Arteta’s starting XI for the first leg of Arsenal’s Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday night having missed last week’s draw with Nottingham Forest through suspension.

But once again Lewis-Skelly’s inexperience showed and the 18-year-old was perhaps fortunate to remain on the field after fouling PSV defender Richard Ledezma while already on a booking.

The yellow was Lewis-Skelly’s sixth card of the season in all competitions and Arteta made the decision to take the teenager out of the firing line to remove the risk of another sending off, with Riccardo Calafiori introduced in place of the teenager in the 35th minute.

And it was Calafiori who scored the seventh and final goal as the Gunners took one giant step towards the quarter-finals of Europe’s premier competition.

Jurrien Timber, Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Merino, Martin Odegaard and Leandro Trossard were Arsenal’s other goalscorers at Eindhoven’s Philips Stadion.

Reacting to the win on the Wrighty’s House podcast, legendary ex-Arsenal striker Wright praised the movement of Arteta’s attacking players and gave special mention to Merino, who once again impressed as a false nine.

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‘I have to mention Merino, simply because his performance up there,’ Wright said.

‘I just felt like the ball was sticking in an area where an Odegaard gets to play.

‘Trossard was going on a mad ting! He’s was going off with some stuff!

‘Trossard, Merino, Ethan and Martin… unbelievable moment. And then Declan [Rice] blasting through! They couldn’t get near us, the movement from the frontman

Wright felt Lewis-Skelly was lucky not to have been sent off after his mistimed challenge on PSV full-back Ledezma and hopes the teen is able to sort out his indiscipline going forward.

‘He could have easily been sent off and it’s just dependent on what ref you’ve got,’ Wright added.

‘We were fortunate to have that ref because you don’t want to have the narrative to be on Myles Lewis-Skelly, who is a young player, playing in multiple positions, finding himself in different areas of the pitch.

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Lewis-Skelly was perhaps fortunate to have avoided his third red of the season (Picture: Getty)

‘He’s going to have to be amongst bodies, he’s going to get cards.

‘But if he starts getting them then it’s going to stick with him but I just don’t want that for him.’

Wright continued: ‘Do you know something? He’s a No.8, man. You can see that all day long. I can’t wait for that to happen.’

Wright is looking forward to seeing how Arteta fits both Lewis-Skelly and Calafiori into his starting XI for the remainder of the season and beyond.

‘You look at what we’ve got just as a left side now, him [Calafiori] and Myles Lewis-Skelly. I’d love to see how Arteta is going to fit those two in if he can,’ he went on.

‘I don’t know know how that will work because, like I say, Myles Lewis-Skelly is probably an eight.

‘He can be six, eight, we’ve seen him do it. Will Calafiori come on the left side, he can be a left-back and they can swap if he goes?’

Wright was impressed by Arteta’s calm and composed demeanour before kick-off considering how ‘intense’ the Spaniard has looked at times in recent weeks.

‘I watched some of the build-up and Mikel was on the start of the show doing his interview,’ the former England forward said.

‘I’ve got to say, he was really, really calm and relaxed in the interview. He was really calm, really smiley, really nice.

‘I was thinking to myself: I feel really good about seeing him like that because he didn’t look as intense as we’ve seen him. He looked really calm.

‘And then the guys went and put in a performance like that. It was fantastic.’

Arsenal will look to carry their momentum over from the victory over PSV into their Premier League clash with Manchester United this weekend.

Lewis-Skelly is available again having served his one-match suspension but the contest is likely to come too soon for injured duo Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.