I will be frustrated but not at all surprised on Saturday afternoon, when Arsene Wenger announces his Arsenal starting line up for the Premier League home game against Stoke City and the names of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott are missing once again.
Hopefully the boss will prove me wrong and select at least one of the pacy England internationals on the other side of Olivier Giroud to Alexis Sanchez, but I am not holding my breath. So many games that seemed perfect for the pacy players have come and gone and the boss has stuck with his trusted starting XI, putting a player like Ramsey, Ozil, Cazorla or Wilshere out wide where they can do a job but are not really comfortable.
Theo and the Ox are not perfect, I grant you. They sometimes take on too much and they do lose the ball more than the likes of Ramsey. but they offer the Gunners something that none of our other players do. On their day, the two Englishmen can terrorise any team and can be almost unplayable. On an average day they give the opposition a problem as there is always that chance of us getting in behind with a long ball.
If Wenger continues to ignore these two players that would probably get in almost any other team in the league, I think that there will soon be serious ructions in the dressing room. So why does Wenger insist on keeping them on the bench? Anyone?