Arsenal legend Tony Adams has named one player who he thinks should have been given more minutes under Mikel Arteta this season.
Arsenal were leading the Premier League title race for the majority of the season, however two wins in their last eight games have lead to Manchester City being crowned champions with a game to spare.
Arsenal have collapsed in recent weeks, most recently at the City Ground this weekend where the Gunners were beaten 1-0 by Nottingham Forest.
As well as injury problems, some players have underperformed in recent weeks and former Arsenal player, Tony Adams thinks Emile Smith Rowe should have been used more by Mikel Arteta towards the end of the season.
Tony Adams told Sky Sports: “We’ve depended on Martinelli and Saka for most of the season. To give them a rest now and again, they could have given Emile a bit more game time for me. He could have subbed Martinelli and let him play off the left-hand side.”
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“Just because we’re always going to need them. We need them to get over the line. I’ve been waiting for the errors to come and they weren’t coming. Everything was stable.”
“We had it going on. But as soon as the resources, a couple of injuries, people lost their form, it just didn’t work. I think it’s been lost three months ago.”
Emile Smith Rowe was a big player for Arsenal in the 2021/22 campaign. The 22-year-old finished the season as the Gunners’ top scorer in the league with 10 goals in 33 appearances. However this season has been a completely different story.
Smith Rowe was injured at the start of the 2022/23 campaign, and with the great form Arsenal were on, he’s struggled to get into the team all season. Arsenal’s number ten only played 146′ minutes in the league this season, compared to 1920′ minutes the season before.
Emile Smith Rowe’s future is unclear ahead of next season, however Mikel Arteta remains a huge fan of the player so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was given another chance to perform in the 2023/24 campaign.
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