Chelsea vs. Arsenal live updates: Team news as Palmer on bench, Saliba out for Premier League game
I mentioned Arsenal’s squad planning earlier on and they showed just how strong it has been in that statement victory on Wednesday evening. James McNicholas was our man at the Emirates Stadium and this is a snippet of what he had to say.
📝 When you have a winning team, everybody wants to be part of it.
Arsenal have assembled one of the most formidable squads in Europe. On the evidence of Wednesday’s 3-1 win against Bayern Munich in the league phase of this season’s Champions League, it is striking an enviable balance, one where each player sees every start as a privilege, every minute on the pitch as an opportunity.
It is that rarest, most fragile football phenomenon: healthy competition. Competition that invigorates. Mikel Arteta’s side are six points clear in the Premier League as we head into December and have won the first five of their eight games in this opening stage of the Champions League.
Arsenal are in that perfect state of equilibrium. The players picked to start feel simultaneously supported by and under threat from those on the bench. The ones named as substitutes for a match see it not as demotion or chastisement, but as a chance to contribute later on in the game.
Read the full piece below.
