It is really not that hard for Arsene Wenger or the Arsenal fans to put their finger on the Manchester United player that is likely to be the biggest threat to the Gunners on Monday. That would be the England and United captain Wayne Rooney.
Even before the long serving striker broke his goal drought against Sunderland last weekend, Wenger and the players would have targeted Rooney as the principle threat. He is the club’s top scorer this season despite having been played all over the pitch including central midfield.
With our old mate Robin out of action though, and with Radamel Falcao seemingly as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit at Old Trafford, Rooney will be playing up front against us on Monday. He has a great record against the Gunners and has already scored against us once this season, so how do we go about nullifying the threat?
Francis Coquelin clearly has a massive part to play, especially now that Gabriel has picked up a hamstring problem and will miss the game. We do not want Rooney exposing Mertesacker and it would be better if we can keep him from running at our last line of defence at all.
Coquelin can do that job. Wenger would not normally target one player and ignore the overall game but he did a similar thing against Man City star David Silva and having Ramsey back means that Coquelin will have a bit more defensive support in midfield.
So should Wenger just tell Coquelin to stick to Rooney like a French limpet? And is that the key to Arsenal getting a famous result against the old enemy?