‘I’m surprised’: Danny Murphy can’t believe Arsenal haven’t used £45m player on the wing more

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Arsenal’s current crop of attacking options is absolutely brilliant, but, when you’re competing on all four fronts, you need depth and rotation.

As much as we have so many good things to say about Mikel Arteta, it has to be said that he’s not done the best of jobs in rotating his side over the past 12 months, and there are serious worries about burnout for the likes of Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka.

The amount of minutes some of these players have played is staggering, and Danny Murphy has been shocked there hasn’t been more rotation out wide.

Indeed, speaking on Five, Murphy stated that he’s genuinely surprised that Gabriel Jesus hasn’t played more games on the right wing for Arsenal, claiming that he played such a role brilliantly for Manchester City and that it would allow Saka some much-needed rest.

Murphy shocked Jesus hasn’t played wide more

The pundit gave his verdict on Arsenal’s rotation and the £45m striker playing on the wing.

“You have Trossard, Martinelli and Saka, Jesus can play wide. He did it for City so well in big games and on big occasions. I’m surprised last season that Jesus didn’t play more on the right at times to give Saka a break because he was playing every single minute of all of these games,” Murphy said.

Difficult

We can absolutely see Murphy’s point here, but, at the same time, we can also understand why Mikel Arteta wouldn’t want to drop Saka at all.

The 22-year-old is arguably the most important player in Arsenal’s squad, and in the middle of a title race, you really can’t afford to leave a player like this out of the squad.

Rotation is very important, especially with young players, but if Arteta were to actually action such a plan and it were to cost the Gunners points, there would be some serious questions to answer for the Arsenal boss.