Arsenal's Right Wing Dilemma Ahead of Anfield Clash
Mikel Arteta walked into his pre‑Anfield press conference with that familiar half-smile, half-shield. Questions flew about his right flank; answers, predictably, did not.
“We don’t know yet,” he repeated, when Noni Madueke’s name came up. Classic Arteta. Clarity on everyone but the one player he can least afford to lose on that side of the pitch.
What is clear is the scale of the problem. Bukayo Saka is already sidelined with a quad injury. Max Dowman begins a three-match suspension after Arsenal failed to overturn his red card against Fleetwood. The right wing, usually one of Arsenal’s most stable channels, suddenly looks like a fault line.
Declan Rice, Riccardo Calafiori and Christos Tzolis? All trained on Friday, all expected to be available. No mystery there. Madueke, though, is different. His ankle issue kept him out against Fleetwood and still hangs over Arsenal’s plans for Liverpool away.
The expectation inside the club is that he will travel to Merseyside. The problem is whether he can play a full part once he gets there. Arteta has parked that call until after one final session.
“We don’t know yet,” he said again. “We have a training session tomorrow. [Let’s] see if he can complete that full session tomorrow, and after that we’ll know whether he’s available or not.”
Behind the poker face, the equation is simple: if Madueke is fit, he starts. If not, Arteta is into contingency mode.
Option 1: Noni Madueke – the obvious answer
Arteta will be praying this is as far as he needs to go down the list.
Madueke has looked sharp since the last international break, lively on both flanks and increasingly influential in the final third. He stretched Everton with his direct running and it was his cross that dragged Arsenal back into the game against Leeds earlier this month.
In the current squad, with Saka and Dowman out, he is the only natural right winger. The only one who sees the pitch from that side instinctively, who knows when to hug the touchline and when to dart inside. Anfield demands that kind of clarity.
The ankle problem complicates everything. Arsenal have managed it carefully, but a high-intensity away game at Liverpool is a brutal test for any niggle. The medical staff will push the decision as late as they dare; Arteta has already signalled it will go right to the wire.
If Madueke comes through that final session, he plays. If he doesn’t, the plan shifts from ideal to improvised in an instant.
Option 2: Christos Tzolis – the gamble
This is where the experimentation begins.
Throwing Christos Tzolis into a starting role at Anfield would be a huge call in any position, never mind one that isn’t his natural home. He hasn’t played a single minute for Arsenal since suffering a hamstring injury with Greece on October 1. Training again, yes. Back in full sessions, yes. Battle-hardened for 90 minutes under Liverpool’s press? That’s the risk.
Right wing is not what he was bought for. Every appearance he has made for Arsenal so far has come on the left. That was the brief when he arrived in the summer, tasked with helping to fill the void left by Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli.
Yet there is a precedent. Tzolis has operated on the right before, and not in low-pressure fixtures. He started there for Club Brugge in the Champions League against Atletico Madrid last season and scored. Across his career, he has made 26 appearances as a right winger. Enough to show he can at least inhabit the role, even if it doesn’t quite fit like a tailored suit.
If Madueke is ruled out, the decision on Tzolis becomes less about shape and more about the state of his hamstring. Can he be trusted to handle the intensity from the first whistle? Or is he a weapon to be released later, when the game stretches and spaces open?
Arteta’s instinct is usually to protect players coming back from muscle injuries. Anfield, though, is rarely a place for half-measures.
Option 3: Kai Havertz – emergency measure
If Madueke doesn’t make it and Tzolis isn’t ready to start, Arsenal move into break-glass territory.
Arteta does not like ripping up his structure. He has been remarkably consistent with his shape, preferring to tweak roles rather than redraw the whole plan. In that scenario, Kai Havertz becomes the emergency solution on the right.
It would not be a classic winger’s job. In possession, Havertz could drift inside, operating almost as a second striker off Viktor Gyokeres, picking up pockets of space between Liverpool’s lines. Out of possession, he has the engine and the discipline to press, track runners and help maintain Arsenal’s defensive block on that flank.
Nobody at Arsenal would pretend this is ideal. On current form, Havertz would struggle to argue he deserves a start in any position. Yet Arteta trusts him. Trusts his tactical intelligence, his work rate, his ability to carry out instructions in difficult games.
Desperate times demand uncomfortable solutions. If all three of Arsenal’s recognised right-wing options are unavailable, Havertz is the kind of player Arteta will ask to “do a job” and expect him to accept it without complaint.
So Arsenal go to Anfield with a question hanging over their right wing and a manager keeping his cards close. Madueke, Tzolis, Havertz: three different answers, three very different versions of what Arsenal might look like on one of the most unforgiving stages in English football.
