Arsenal v Newcastle United – Who will Emery pick tonight?

This is the game that we have been waiting for, the game that will finally see us go above Tottenham, Man Utd and Chelsea and from that moment onwards have it with our own hands in the race to finish in the top-four.

It has been a mixed weekend of results for us, Chelsea and United were fortunate winners of their respective games but on the other hand Tottenham lost to Liverpool, it is now down to Arsenal to take care of business and to stop looking at how others are performing.

Newcastle will not be easy opponents, make no mistake about that, yes, they have a poor away win record but no team in the Premier League has drawn as many games (7) and to put that more in perspective, Newcastle have lost the same amount of games on the road this season as Chelsea and Tottenham (6).

Add to those stats the fact that they are in form right now, with just one loss in their last six Premier League games, same as us.

Of course, our home record is only bettered by Man City and Liverpool and that cannot be ignored either, Newcastle will be facing a team that is almost impregnable on their own turf.

What sort of team can we expect Unai Emery to put out this evening?

Well, that is always a guessing game isn’t it, we never really know what formation he is going to utilise or what players he will select.

That said, we know for sure he will be playing Bernd Leno in goal, that is a given and it is highly likely he will go with a back three, probably Laurent Koscielny, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and one of Shkodran Mustafi or Nacho Monreal, my preference is for Monreal.

They will most likely be supplemented with two wing backs in Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles but then it gets tricky.

Will he start Mesut Ozil? I do not think so, will he start Henrikh Mkhitaryan? again, I doubt it, same applies with Denis Suarez, though there is a possibility he may finally get a start, then there are the doubts over Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka following their knocks on the international break but I am fairly confident we will see the pair start the game and of course, there is Matteo Guendouz who I fully expect to be given the nod.

Now, depending on which midfield formation the boss picks we do not know if he will start both Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, though I would be surprised if he did not.

All that said, this is the line up I think Emery will go with a 5-2-1-2 formation.

Leno
Koscielny
Sokratis
Monreal
Kolasinac
Maitland-Niles
Guendouzi
Xhaka
Ramsey
Lacazette
Aubameyang

I could of course be very wrong, that is the thing with Emery, he does not follow a pattern, he could just as easily pick Ozil and Mkhitaryan instead of Ramsey and Lacazette and go with a completely different formation.

But whatever team he does pick we really should be good enough to get all three points against the ever-improving Newcastle, but caution is the key word today, that and confidence.