Arteta's Bold Call for Champions League Final: Zubimendi as Right-Back?
Arteta’s boldest Champions League final call may already be hiding in plain sight.
On the eve of Arsenal’s showdown with PSG, the narrative has circled around one question: who on earth is going to deal with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia?
A clue from a cold night in Georgia
On Thursday, UEFA dropped a seemingly innocuous clip on X. Not from this season’s Champions League. Not even from club football. It was Spain’s 4-0 win away to Georgia last November in a World Cup qualifier.
On the scoresheet that night: Martin Zubimendi.
More telling than his goal, though, was another moment. Zubimendi sprinting down the flank, tracking Kvaratskhelia, and cleanly dispossessing one of the most devastating wide players in the game. No fuss. No drama. Just intelligent, aggressive defending in a one-v-one duel.
Fast-forward to tomorrow, and Arsenal face the same problem in a far higher-stakes arena. Different shirt, same threat. PSG’s superstar will demand a bespoke plan, and Mikel Arteta knows it.
Timber, Mosquera… or the wild card?
The obvious solution should have been Jurrien Timber. Strong, quick, composed in possession, tactically sharp. But reality bites.
Timber only returned to training this week and has not played a single minute since mid-March, when a groin injury against Everton halted his season. Being “fit” on paper is one thing; being ready to be thrown straight into a Champions League final against arguably the best winger on the planet is quite another.
That risk sits heavy.
Cristhian Mosquera is another option. A centre-back by trade, he brings pace and presence, but not the natural mobility or agility you’d want when isolated against a dribbler of Kvaratskhelia’s level out wide. He can cover ground. Turning, adjusting, repeatedly defending in space? That is a different test.
So Arteta has started to reach for something more unconventional. Something very him.
Zubimendi at right-back: accident or audition?
Last Sunday at Crystal Palace, the team sheet dropped and eyebrows shot up. Zubimendi. Right-back.
No injury crisis. No obvious emergency. Just Arteta, seemingly, trying something.
It felt random at the time. It may not feel random now.
Arteta is a coach who enjoys bending positions to his will, who trusts intelligence and tactical discipline as much as natural profile. Zubimendi has both. The UEFA clip only reinforces the point: he has already shown he can read Kvaratskhelia’s game and win those duels in open play.
That Palace experiment suddenly looks like a live audition rather than a quirk.
The midfield squeeze
There is another layer to this dilemma. Zubimendi’s status in the team has shifted.
For much of the season, he has been central to Arsenal’s control and structure. Reliable, influential, often decisive. But Myles Lewis-Skelly’s resurgence has changed the midfield equation. The young Englishman has played his way back into the side, and right now there is every chance he keeps his place alongside Declan Rice in the middle.
That leaves Zubimendi in a strange limbo. Too important to simply discard. Not guaranteed a starting role in his natural position.
Arteta will feel that tension. Leaving out a player who has helped carry Arsenal through the campaign, in the biggest game of all, would gnaw at him.
A manager’s gamble on the biggest stage
So the picture becomes clearer.
If Timber fails to convince the medical staff and the manager that he is ready to be dropped into a final from a cold start, the door swings open. Mosquera remains the more orthodox defensive pick and, as things stand, probably the favourite to start. He offers height, security, and familiarity in a back line that will be under siege.
But the Zubimendi option will be hard to ignore. Arteta has already tested it in the Premier League. He has seen the Spain footage. He knows the player’s temperament. He knows, too, that this final might demand a solution that is as much about brains as it is about brawn.
If Timber doesn’t make it, no one should be shocked if Zubimendi walks out in that right-back slot, charged with the job of shutting down Kvaratskhelia on the biggest night of Arsenal’s modern era.
The only question now is how bold Arteta is prepared to be when the teamsheets land.
