In light of recent calls to play Gabriel Martinelli centrally in Gabriel Jesus’ absence, Mikel Arteta has explained his thinking on that possibility.

Gabriel Jesus’ injury has given Arsenal a problem to solve over the coming months, given the squad only had two senior centre-forwards going into the season.

Jesus and Eddie Nketiah covered the Premier League and Europa League games well over the first few months of the campaign, but the pressure is now entirely on Nketiah to carry the torch.

As a result, fans have started to speculate over possible alternatives, including recalling players from loan spells, making January signings, or shifting another player up front.

Gabriel Martinelli is often touted as an option for that third solution, given the goals he scored in his very early Arsenal days playing up front. But Mikel Arteta believes Martinelli is at his most threatening out wide.

“To score more goals, Martinelli has to play in the last line, and he needs to play wide,” Arteta told Sky Sports. “Because it is his quality.”

Yet in another interview, Arteta didn’t rule the option out completely, saying: “I think [Jesus] is a unique player but Eddie [Nketiah] has incredible qualities as well for the way we want to play. We have other alternatives in that we can play Martinelli up front as well.”

The manager may also consider Emile Smith Rowe, having played the England international centrally in the past, but that relies on Smith Rowe getting fit again first.

Arteta’s initial comments were from an interview with Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports, with only snippets of the conversation released so far.

The full discussion will go up on Sky Sports Premier League and Main Event at 22:30 GMT on Wednesday night, so we may get more of an insight then.