Mikel Arteta addressed the playing time of Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri as Arsenal balance squad depth and match demands. The manager was asked about reduced minutes ahead of Saturday\u2019s game with West Ham United and emphasised selection is driven by team context and readiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know, but I don’t work with expectations. I work with what the boys can provide in the context that the team is playing in that moment. And Ethan has played two games in the Premier League very early because of an injury of Martin as well. He played in other competitions, and he will play more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Myles, it’s the same. Sometimes it’s form, sometimes it’s the fact that we want to do certain things in relation to the opposition. And that’s it. What I want is that they are in the state that they have to be used. And when they are playing, whether it is to start games or for a few minutes, they are fully ready. And both of them, they’ve been really good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s attacking group has expanded, leaving Nwaneri competing for minutes alongside Bukayo Saka and Martin \u00d8degaard and with Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke added to the options. Nwaneri\u2019s reputation has risen after strong displays in the Premier League, Champions League and Carabao Cup. Lewis-Skelly, by contrast, has largely been an observer this Premier League season, slipping behind Riccardo Calafiori in the pecking order.<\/p>\n
The question to Arteta followed comments from England manager Thomas Tuchel about Lewis-Skelly\u2019s need for regular club minutes to maintain a place in international camps. Tuchel said: \u201cTo just be a good citizen in camp will not be enough over the course of a year,\u201d Tuchel said. \u201cHe was a very good player in camp, a very good team-mate in camp [last month]. But being a good team-mate in camp may not be good enough to stay the whole year with us. You have to perform at club level on a regular basis. In the last camp he got the credit, that I was convinced we have to take care of him and nominate him because we accelerated his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our responsibility after we called him last season. So we stick to this. He was now part of a very successful camp so he gets the reward for that. But if you remember he was not part of the\u00a020-man squad in the match in Serbia.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill, his behaviour was outstanding, even if he was not part of the squad. His training, his attitude, his attitude to push and support the guys on the pitch was outstanding and of the highest level. He is one of the players who benefits from this decision, from sticking with the same squad, but the performances [for Arsenal] will be a key factor in the next month. He benefits also from the proximity of the camps and that [the last one] was three weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Season metrics to date show Myles Lewis-Skelly with 6 appearances, 0 Premier League starts, 248 minutes and 30.6% of available minutes. Ethan Nwaneri has 4 appearances, 2 Premier League starts, 220 minutes and 27.1% of available minutes. Arteta reiterated his expectation that both be ready when called upon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta explains limited minutes for Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri amid Arsenal squad depth. .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961,969],"tags":[826,1066,1047],"class_list":["post-3522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","category-premier-league","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-carabao-cup","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}