Arsenal suffered a major blow ahead of Sunday's clash against Chelsea as £50m summer arrival Ben White was ruled out of the game after testing positive for coronavirus.
With the ever-intimidating Romelu Lukaku set to make his second Chelsea debut, Arteta's threadbare backline is incredibly vulnerable, with the Gunners facing the prospect of back-to-back losses at the beginning of the Premier League campaign.
White's unavailability and Gabriel's absence due to injury sees Arsenal without possibly their first-choice partnership.
Elsewhere, Pablo Mari seemed worryingly out of his depth against Brentford's front line on the opening weekend. He failed to cope with the physicality of Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbeumo, so facing up to Lukaku on Sunday is far not ideal.
Let us not even mention William Saliba, who may or may not be watching events unfold from somewhere in Marseille. He might have been thrust into action had Arteta deemed him ready for his first-team squad.
That leaves Rob Holding, the forgotten man among Arteta's defensive options. The Englishman is often viewed as a limited centre-half in the modern game. He does not possess the agility or ball-playing qualities which Arsenal identified in White this summer.
But he does have the necessary combative nature along with some old-fashioned gusto to go head-to-head in a physical encounter with Lukaku.
He proved as much with his memorable performance in the 2017 FA Cup final against Diego Costa.
Holding lined up alongside full-back Nacho Monreal and the lesser-seen Per Mertesacker in a makeshift back three, against a forward in Costa who had, up until that point, routinely terrorised Arsenal's defence.
The mood among Arsenal fans going into that game at Wembley was one of dread. Ahead of Sunday's game at the Emirates, it is fair to say Gunners fans are generally even more pessimistic than on that day in 2017.
So step forward Rob Holding. The image of him wrestling with Costa, and performatively pointing to his head after each exchange remains fresh in the minds of the Gunners' faithful.
If he can recapture a similar performance at the Emirates on Sunday, his precious place as a true Arsenal cult hero may be regained.
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