‘I would like to see’: Pundit now urges Mikel Arteta to use £12m player with Declan Rice in midfield

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Arsenal signed two big-name midfielders this summer, but, somehow, it still feels as though the Gunners’ midfield is slightly unbalanced.

Indeed, Kai Havertz’s poor start to life at the Emirates has caused plenty of problems for the north London club so far, and there is a real case to make that Havertz should be replaced in the XI going forwards.

Arteta needs to make a real decision in his midfield, and according to Adrian Clarke, speaking on the Handbrake Off Podcast, one solution could be to use both Jorginho and Declan Rice in this position.

Use Jorginho

Clarke stated that he’d like to see the £12m midfielder playing with Rice in this Arsenal side.

“These are the players that do the quiet work, without Jorginho and Rice calming things the star players can’t do their thing. I’m a big fan of both players and I would like to see them both play together. It worked out ok vs Man United in the end, but we asked a lot of Declan in the game defensively, especially when they broke on us,” Clarke said.

Interesting

It would certainly be interesting to see both Jorginho and Rice in the same midfield.

Neither player is the most attack-minded, but we’ve seen Rice make those surging runs from deep many times for West Ham, so maybe if Jorginho was playing alongside him, he could be given more freedom to bomb forward and attack.

The balance of such a midfield would be intriguing, and perhaps it’s something that Mikel Arteta should consider going forwards.