Arsenal's depth helps Gunners move to top of Premier League table in victory over Luton Town

LONDON -- If there has been one facet of Mikel Arteta's management that has needled at Arsenal and their observers over recent seasons it has been his inability to make the greatest use of his squad. Maybe the explanation for that has always been a simple one, that his bench has not had the pieces to change the course of a season.

Maybe that would be just as true against most of the 2023-24 Premier League. Over the next six weeks Arsenal need to go to Wolverhampton, Tottenham and Munich. Should their run-in go to plan, there will be a Champions League semifinal to negotiate too. They will need to be able to dig a little into the depth chart for the more favorable fixtures. This 2-0 home win over Luton Town, another Game where Arteta offered little to enrapture the mythic "neutral viewer," was the perfect opportunity to do so. Arteta managed it with aplomb, guiding his side back to the top of the league and preserving the fitness of the squad.

"When they have their moment they have to take it," Arteta said of his fringe players. "They certainly did today. They give me every reason every day, regardless of the result. It's not the right decision or the wrong one because of the result.

"If we'd lost the game then it would have been because of the changes. It's not as simple as that. At the end of you have to do what is right and what they deserve. I was full of confidence that they would respond."

For Arteta, a man who tends to favor rhythm over rotation, five changes constituted a significant shuffling of the pack. Bukayo Saka was held back despite having been fully involved in training on Monday. He was, for only the second time in Arsenal's last 106 Premier League games, left out of the XI entirely. There was still room in the XI for iron men Martin Odegaard and Ben White but Declan Rice, Gabriel Jesus, Jorginho were all held back. Hale End's finest entered the fray alongside the returning Thomas Partey and Oleksandr Zinchenko, the platform on which Arsenal's last title push was built.

Rob Edwards had had even more dilemmas selecting his side, the injury list having swollen even further to 11 after the 2-1 defeat to Tottenham at the weekend. No Reece Burke meant a three-man central defense with two natural right backs. In midfield, Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu, who has been with Luton from non-league to Premier League, lived out what must have been the boyhood dream of playing at the Emirates Stadium, though he would doubtless prefer being alongside Odegaard and Emile Smith Rowe to chasing them across the pitch.

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Given the threadbare nature of a squad that couldn't really be blamed for being overwhelmed at full strength, it was impressive that Luton held Arsenal at bay for quite as long as they did. The Gunners jabbed and needled but took time to develop the synchronicity that comes when Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Declan Rice are at full tilt. Instead, these were early encounters where individual quality was going to have to will the hosts past a diligent opponent.

Much of that came from Smith Rowe, the No. 10 determined to prove a point in what may well be the final months of his Arsenal career. Twice he might have won free kicks in dangerous areas if his first-time passes had not been so well placed that Craig Pawson felt the home team would be better rewarded with an advantage. That he has never shied away from challenges partly explains why recent years have been so disrupted by injuries.

"I love him as a player, he is a joy to watch," said Arteta. "How he moves, changes direction and how physical he was today without the ball.

"He went into duels and won a lot of them and was thinking with that killer instinct to play forward and make things happen. When Emile is in that moment, it's very difficult to stop him. Today he helped us a lot to win the Game."

Here was a reminder of why some at Hale End and London Colney saw him and Odegaard as a potential midfield duo for the years ahead. Smith Rowe's tackle on Mpanzu 24 minutes in gave Arsenal a rare chance to drive at an unsettled defense; Odegaard needed no second invitation. He gave it to Kai Havertz and drove on into the space to his left, thudding in a low drive beyond Thomas Kaminski.

Further back, Oleksandr Zinchenko's presence at left back meant Arsenal were somewhat less of a lockdown defense, giving up more penalty box touches in the first half of this match than they had at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. Equally, the fluidity of his positioning on the ball brings similar qualities out of those around them, the left flank a hive of movement where neither Smith Rowe nor Leandro Trossard had a fixed abode.

As the interval approached the Belgian held his position high and wide on the left, dragging Fred Onyedima wide. With Havertz attracting two Luton center backs a crease opened for Smith Rowe to charge into, picking the ball up at the byline and holding out for just long enough that Reiss Nelson could join him. Daiki Hashioka ended a grueling half that had seen him chasing shadows and taking an almighty whack from William Saliba by beating Nelson to divert the ball in.

Arsenal concluded that would be enough. Luton came out swinging in the second half but whenever things got a little too tight for comfort Arteta could turn to his bench. First came Rice, the man whose arrival presaged this side's blossoming into Europe's best defense. He was followed by perhaps the club's best one-on-one defender in Takehiro Tomiyasu. When Edwards needed to add ballast to his midfield he turned to Luke Berry, a two-time member of the League Two team of the year. When Arteta needed to do the same, on came the 2021 UEFA Men's Player of the Year, a man who has shared a Ballon d'Or podium with Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski. If you've got Jorginho you might as well flaunt him.

Twelve months ago a creaking title challenge looked to be contingent on Rob Holding being a player he wasn't, Thomas Partey stringing together a run of consistent performances that was beyond a player with his injury track record. The fringes of the first team looked parlous, hardly the sort of players who could swing a title race back in Arsenal's favor. Like every one of the contenders it is still hard to see a route to the title should William Saliba, Rice or Saka go down for extended periods but what this suggested is that Arteta can at last mitigate the risk of losing any of those key players.