Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on Sunday said that he could substitute his goalkeeper in the middle of a match if the situation demands a tactical change.
Arteta gave David Raya his debut in a 1-0 win against Everton after dropping England goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.
The Spaniard, signed on loan from Brentford, was rarely tested by woeful Everton before Leandro Trossard’s second-half strike sealed Arsenal’s first win at Goodison Park in six years.
Photo: AFP
Defending his decision to start with Raya, Arteta said: “The same rationale about why Fabio [Vieira] played here, or Eddie [Nketiah] or Gabriel Jesus.”
“I haven’t had a single question on why Gabriel Jesus didn’t start. He has won more trophies than anybody else, including me, in that dressing room,” he said.
Arteta, whose side have made an unbeaten start to the English Premier League season, claimed he would even be prepared to utilize two goalkeepers in one match if he felt it would help secure a victory.
“I cannot have two players in each position and not play them. David has tremendous qualities, like Aaron has, and we have to use them,” Arteta said. “I am a really young manager and I have only been in the job for three-and-a-half years, and I have few regrets in what we have done.”
“One of them is that on two occasions I felt after 60 minutes and 85 minutes in two games in this period, to change the ’keeper in that moment and I didn’t do it,” he said. “I didn’t have the courage to do it, but I am able to take a winger, or a striker, and put a central defender back and go to a back five to hold that result. We drew those games and I was so unhappy. Someone is going to do it. Why not? Tell me why not. You have all the qualities in another goalkeeper and you want to do something to change the momentum, do it.”
Earlier, Mauricio Pochettino said that he would not condemn the Chelsea fans who booed his team after a drab 0-0 draw against AFC Bournemouth.
The Blues have made their second-worst start to a Premier League campaign following a lackluster performance at the Vitality Stadium.
With just one win from five league games, Chelsea are closer to the relegation zone than the top four.
It has been a wretched start to Pochettino’s reign and for the second successive game his players were booed off by angry supporters.
Chelsea defender Ben Chilwell appeared to endure extra abuse when he went toward the Chelsea supporters.
Despite a spending spree of more than ￡1 billion (US$1.2 billion) since Todd Boehly’s consortium purchased Chelsea from Roman Abramovich last year, the west London club are in a bigger mess than ever.
Despite an injury crisis that forced Pochettino to name three outfield players aged 19 or under on the bench as well as two goalkeepers, the Argentine said he could not complain about the fans’ jeers.
“What can we do? For me, I have nothing to say. The fans can do whatever they want,” he said. “We know what we need to do, we are strong in our belief. We have 12 injured and today we had three or four young guys and two ’keepers on the bench. I’m going to cry? I’m going to complain? To who? I need to accept this, the challenge and keep being positive.”
Asked whether he was sympathetic to the reaction of the fans, Pochettino said: “What I can tell the fans is there are circumstances that we cannot change.”
“We have too many players injured. We’re a team that would be strong if we are together. Manchester City, Arsenal, when they have all the squad fit, they can compete for everything,” he said. “Why is it different for us? It’s because of what? We don’t have all the squad available from the beginning of the season. These are the circumstances we need to accept and be positive, patient.”
LEGAL ACTION: The Suns said they were among the first teams approved for this season, but they had been asked to meet a stricter financial criterion afterward The Taichung Suns will not play in the T1 League’s 2023-2024 season after repeatedly failing to meet criteria regarding team finances, the professional basketball league said in a statement on Friday. The T1 League said that following the decision on the Suns, made at the league’s 22nd executive council meeting, it would postpone a planned news conference on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming season. A source familiar with the league’s operations told reporters that the Suns had been asked at two previous meetings of the T1 League’s executive council to provide evidence proving the franchise had the requisite finances. The announcement of the
‘NOTHING HAS CHANGED’: Jenni Hermoso said that the striking players had been ‘caught by surprise’ by the call-ups, saying it was a strategy to intimidate them Striking Spanish internationals called up to the women’s team on Monday reiterated their desire not to form part of the squad in a new blow for the shaken the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). However, they were told by the government early yesterday that those who did not attend the team’s camps when called up would have to be punished. Spanish National Sports Council president Victor Francos said he would have to apply the country’s sports law. “If they don’t turn up, the government would have to apply the law, which is a pity for me, but the law is the
EARLY LOSSES: Some sports have already started at the Asian Games in Hangzhou ahead of the opening ceremony on Saturday, including volleyball, with a Taiwan loss South Korea’s bid for a third straight men’s gold medal in soccer at the Asian Games got off to the perfect start with a 9-0 thrashing of Kuwait on Tuesday, but coach Hwang Sun-hong is giving his players little time to enjoy it. With a more testing group match against Thailand today, Hwang is wary of complacency creeping in after his side ran riot against Kuwait in Jinhua, China, southwest of host city Hangzhou. “We’ll pretend this match never happened,” Hwang said after the Kuwait game, Yonhap news agency reported. “We have even more difficult matches coming up later, and we have
Hong Kong is one of the smaller Asian Games teams by population, but when it comes to fencing the territory is a regional heavyweight with ambitious medal hopes. Edgar Cheung won gold at the Tokyo Games two years ago — Hong Kong’s first Olympic fencing title and first Olympic gold in any sport in 25 years. It turned Cheung into a celebrity overnight and prompted parents across the territory to rush and sign their children up for fencing classes. Cheung’s historic win in the foil competition was a much-needed dose of good news for a territory mired in social unrest and COVID-19 gloom
RSS