Mikel Arteta provided a promising update On how to Approach Leicester match without Bukayo Saka due to suspension
Arsenal face Leicester City on Saturday afternoon, but how many changes should Mikel Arteta make to the side that started the 4-2 win over Aston Villa.
Arsenal returned to winning ways against Aston Villa and their next task is to leave the King Power Stadium with all three points on Saturday to remain top of the Premier League table.
Leicester City are the Gunners' final opposition of a month that hasn't been too kind to them. Mikel Arteta's side began February with a defeat away at Everton which was followed up with a controversial draw at home to Brentford before they slipped to second place in the table after losing to Manchester City.
This weekend's fixture marks Arsenal's first of seven in the space of 22 days and it's almost a guarantee that Mikel Arteta will look to freshen things up where he can. Although, with a decent amount of rest time since coming from behind to beat Aston Villa, it could be that the Spaniard resists the temptation against Leicester.
With that said, there is a scenario where the Gunners manager is presented with a team selection dilemma with the return of an influential senior player for the trip to the King Power, whilst another could be recalled following an impressive individual performance at Villa Park.
Arteta was asked about Saka's condition after the game, but the Spaniard had positive news to share to the media, saying: "He's fine - he got kicked quite a lot again, but he's going to have to deal with that, not every week, but every three days.
"Sometimes in training as well. It's his game - teams are not stupid and they want to stop him. We need to protect him."
With nine goals and eight assists to show from 23 Premier League appearances this season, Saka has unsurprisingly been targeted by opposing defenders in recent games, having also been roughed up by Bernardo Silva against Manchester City in midweek.
When asked if officials needed to do more to protect Saka from persistent fouls, Arteta responded: "We will discuss that. We will look at the images again and report it if it's necessary."
Martinelli recalled as Trossard misses out
Against Aston Villa, Leandro Trossard made his first start for Arsenal in the Premier League since his £21m arrival from Brighton & Hove Albion in the January transfer window and at the expense of Gabriel Martinelli, who as adamantly put by Arteta, wasn't 'dropped' from the starting line-up.
"It’s not dropping him! He’s played every single minute. You don’t see players at his age doing that. We have three 21-year-olds leading the front line," he said. "It’s unheard of. Leo (Trossard) has been doing really well and we needed impact. I was really worried about the last 25 minutes of this game after everything that we put on Wednesday. We needed energy and we needed a player that could do that. I thought we did it."
To come off the bench and score (as well as claiming a pre-assist for the own goal) was the perfect response from Martinelli to being left out of a Premier League starting line-up for the first time this season and one would imagine the reward is an immediate recall vs Leicester.
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