Choose your Arsenal XI By Twig
It has been a pretty eventful transfer window and Arsenal were in the thick of it! This time around, there wasn’t any last minute scramble for players by Arsenal as we had already wrapped up the signing of Xhaka before the European championship started, and had concluded the Perez and Mustafi deals earlier in the week. It hasn’t been a perfect transfer window – it was hard on the heart at times! – however, most Gooners will be quietly satisfied with the business our side has done. I was really hopeful of a wild-card signing such as Almiron – especially with Gnabry’s departure – but unfortunately that didn’t happen. In any case, if we get all our injured players back, the squad looks in pretty good shape.
For the first time in a long time, Arsenal seems to have something that looks like squad depth! Our midfield is particularly impressive, and it’ll be interesting to see how Wenger keeps everyone happy. In Perez, we have a striker who can create and also score. He is quite pacy – not as quite as much as Vardy – and he should relish the physical side of the English game. With Ozil, Cazorla and Xhaka in the team, I see no reason why he can’t have his best goalscoring season ever at Arsenal. Let’s get him his first Spain call up by the next international break!
Walcott also seems to have found new form and you feel all he needs now is a goal or two to embark on a goalscoring run. There has been a lot of unfair criticism of Theo of recent, in my opinion, but his proven productivity when on form and especially his performances in the big games – Theo does well in the big games – justifies Wenger’s continued faith in him. Ozil was very lively in the last game and showed no signs of someone “who will jump at the opportunity to return to Real Madrid”. He also seems very happy with the arrival of Mustafi, and perhaps even played a key role in persuading him to come. We need to keep Ozil happy and motivated.
Wenger has persisted with a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 for over 10 years now and it is unlikely that that will change anytime soon. A 4-4-2 although it has had great successes in the EPL (Manchester United, Manchester City and Leicester last year), does not really suit our personnel, as either Ozil or Cazorla must play. A 4-4-2 doesn’t really suit either player. However, in energetic midfield players such as Coquelin, Elneny and Xhaka, we could easily switch to a 4-4-2 if required. Arsene Wenger has so many possibilities at his disposal. If he can identify his first XI quickly enough, I’m positive we could have a great season. The task now at hand is to find the personnel to fill in the available spots. At the moment, these are the candidates for the various positions:
ST: Giroud, Perez, Welbeck, Sanchez, Walcott
RW: Walcott, Sanchez, Welbeck, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Perez
LW: Sanchez, Iwobi, Perez, Welbeck, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Reine-Adelaide
CAM: Ozil, Cazorla, Ramsey, Iwobi, Sanchez, Zelalem
CM: Cazorla, Ramsey, Elneny, Zelalem
DM: Xhaka, Coquelin
LB: Monreal, Gibbs
RW: Bellerin, Debuchy, Jenkinson
CDM: Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gabriel, Mustafi, Holding
GK: Cech, Ospina
So what are your first choice for each position? Hopefully, we could have a vote to find which starting XI emerges top!
Twig