Arsenal have last chance to make Champions League squad U-turn as Mikel Arteta deadline looms

As Mikel Arteta looks to rotate his Arsenal side enough to keep key players fit for Sunday's Premier League visit of Chelsea but also to try and add gloss and momentum to the Champions League last-16 tie against PSV Eindhoven, all the pressure is off. Only injuries and suspensions can bother him now.

Arsenal are through barring a miracle and shock the type of which has quite literally never been seen before. Arteta can plan with this in mind. The Chelsea match is a big one.

A win against the Blues will cement his side in second place and could see the gap to Nottingham Forest in third grow to seven points with nine games remaining. Losing would allow Chelsea to within to within a one-match swing, dragging Arsenal into the scrap for Champions League qualification.

Things are unlikely to get this far as the gap to sixth is already eight points. Arsenal will not want to drop down and be fighting with Manchester City, Chelsea, and Forest, regardless.

With that in mind, Arteta has a rare chance to rest and rotate. Jurrien Timber, Gabriel Martinelli, and Raheem Sterling are all one yellow card away from missing the next match in Europe - expected to be the home first leg quarter-final against one of the Madrid sides - so decisions will have to made over their involvement.

Martinelli could do with getting some minutes under his belt as a return to match sharpness continues following his injury. Raheem Sterling is the natural replacement either on the left to shield Martinelli or for Ethan Nwaneri on the right, who is due a day off after shouldering much of the creative responsibility in recent weeks. That is one issue for Arteta to solve, albeit not a bad one to have given the lack of pressure on this fixture.

What is more unclear is who starts the game up front. Mikel Merino has been the semi-permanent placeholder but is another who will surely need to play against Chelsea. This is an ideal opportunity to leave him out ahead of the weekend. The same is true of Leandro Trossard who has also played there.

Arsenal do have a wildcard if they want it. The only natural striker in the senior squad right now is Nathan Butler-Oyedeji and he has been in and around the team since early January.

Even before Havertz and Gabriel Jesus were ruled out for the season he had started to get picked on the bench. The 22-year-old is in limbo with nothing left to gain from playing in Premier League 2 with the Under-21s side - he has 12 goals and 10 assists in 48 matches in that competition across his stunted career to date. He could do with a game here.

Arteta clearly has some level of trust in him otherwise there wouldn't be a place in the squad at all. His age indicates he is not part of the future but if an essentially meaningless European home match when avoiding injuries to others is the most important thing, why not chuck him in?

The Hale End graduate's record of not scoring in League One least season at Cheltenham Town (from 13 appearances, no starts, 250 minutes and a maximum of one half) is not exactly promising. Neither was the lack of end product at Accrington Stanley the year before in the same division.

Arsenal have nothing to lose in playing him here, though. It is either that or turning to a younger academy player. Using Merino or Trossard really would be a needless risk when preservation is the ultimate goal.

It is no great offence to PSV to play someone like Butler-Oyedeji, and if anything it could be a springboard for his career and a chance to raise his transfer value from Arsenal's perspective. In January, he made his senior debut, coming on as a stoppage-time substitute when the game was already won against Dinamo Zagreb.

He has been on the bench in both of the Champions League games since and also in seven of the last nine Premier League matchday squads too. The fact he did not feature against Manchester United on Sunday is not a great sign for his hopes but does not rule anything out.

Butler-Oyedeji would at least bring some striker instincts to a team severely lacking in it. Although Merino has worked tirelessly to occupy defenders and act as a No.9, it is simply not the same as having someone whose game has always been in that position.

Past Wednesday night it is hard to see where Butler-Oyedeji plays if not here. That may not be a significant problem as he has been peripheral, at very best, to matters. It is the last chance to try him out and to offer a valuable experience to a player in need of it.

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