Latest Gunners news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\nStill starting at left-back many have called for the 19-year-old to be given an opportunity in central midfield. It came close to happening in the home game against Brighton but when Calafiori suffered a problem in the warm-up, Lewis-Skelly was moved from a presumed midfield role to left-back with Bukayo Saka then coming from the bench into the midfield.<\/p>\n
However, with the number of injury concerns suffered before and during the international break, it could be that Lewis-Skelly finally starts in the middle. Arsenal travel to Southampton on Saturday evening for the quarter-finals of the competition.<\/p>\n
A list of ten players pulled out of duty with their national teams due to a variety of fitness-related problems of varying severity. William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Jurrien Timber, Piero Hincapie, Martin Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Noni Madueke, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Leandro Trossard were all impacted.<\/p>\n
While some could yet make the Sporting CP clash next week, Southampton is looking unlikely, although it is thought Timber is targeting a return. Martin Odegaard is another who has been out for a few weeks but could return at the weekend.<\/p>\n
However, with Zubimendi, Rice, Eze and the longer-term absentee Mikel Merino all missing, it could be Lewis-Skelly comes in. Equally, Arteta could use a midfield three of Christian Norgaard, Kai Havertz and Odegaard, should he so choose, with all three thought to be available for the match \u2013 barring any late issues this week.<\/p>\n
However, it might prove better to give the likes of Havertz a rest, who has played twice for Germany over the break, and move Lewis-Skelly into the midfield. Arteta has the choice and has shown some willingness to try it and the cup fixture again allows that reality to be trialled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Myles Lewis-Skelly could be granted his dream role soon for Arsenal despite noise around his future Myles Lewis-Skelly has been used mainly at left-back at Arsenal despite midfield hopes(Image: Alex Pantling\/Getty Images) Arsenal\u2019s Myles Lewis-Skelly remains in a fragile situation with rumours circulating regarding his future. From the established starting left-back to third choice in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}