Mikel Arteta has signalled a willingness to deploy players out of position as Arsenal cope with a series of defensive absences. With William Saliba a doubt ahead of the London derby, Arteta confirmed that Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Cristhian Mosquera and Riccardo Calafiori remain sidelined with various ailments.<\/p>\n
Faced with limited options, Arteta turned to Christian N\u00f8rgaard to partner Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es for Sunday\u2019s FA Cup victory over Portsmouth. The manager indicated that more ad hoc solutions could follow in the coming weeks as the squad navigates the injury situation. \u201cWe are trying to find solutions to protect our players,\u201d the Gunners manager explained. \u201cThe good thing is that players you ask to play in different positions like Christian for example or Dec [Declan Rice], they fulfil their role immediately in a great way and we need to navigate now in the next few weeks through that situation and I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Declan Rice remains a clear alternative for a central role. The midfielder played at centre back during his youth career and in his early days at West Ham United, and he has also been used at right back this season. Rice produced a standout performance at full back against Brighton & Hove Albion in December, and Arteta could again redeploy him on the flank should Jurri\u00ebn Timber or Ben White be moved into the middle.<\/p>\n
N\u00f8rgaard, who joined from Brentford in the summer, has yet to start a Premier League game for the club, but Arteta expressed full confidence: \u201cHe is always ready to fulfil any role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the on-field adaptability and a broader cultural transformation at the club, Arteta\u2019s time in charge will be judged by silverware. Since the 2020 FA Cup final, the club\u2019s only honours under his tenure are a pair of Community Shields. The manager has lost four semifinals across three competitions over the past four years, a run he has described as \u201cpainful\u201d while remaining hopeful of a breakthrough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta may use midfielders as makeshift centre backs as injuries continue to bite over coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[984,1393,606],"class_list":["post-5967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-ben-white","tag-centre-back","tag-christian-norgaard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5967","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=5967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}