With Monaco being famous for the casinos, I suppose there is no better place for Arsenal to roll the dice and have a gamble. And that is just what I expect Arsene Wenger to do tomorrow night as the boss tries to get us into the quarter-finals of the Champions League – despite losing to Monaco 3-1 at home in the first leg.
The Gunners need an early goal to quieten the home crowd and get the nerves jangling among the Monaco players so I expect to see an attacking line-up and despite how well the team played against West Ham on Saturday, I do not think that Wenger will stick with the same starting XI.
I think we need to make four key changes in Monaco and despite his Man of the Match show at the weekend, I think Aaron Ramsey should be one of them. Not only is it a lot to ask to play two hard games in four days after just returning to the side from injury, I feel that we have to get the excellent and more attacking Santi Cazorla on to the pitch. Swapping the Spaniard for Rambo may take away some defensive strength but we have to go for it.
So I would also bring Danny Welbeck in after his great winner against Man United, and drop Walcott back to the bench. The speedy England international could be very useful as a sub, while Danny is pretty quick himself but offers more in terms of strength and pressing the opposition. Walcott is not fully up to match sharpness yet either.
My other two changes would be at the back, with Gabriel replacing Mertesacker as long as the Brazilian is fit. We may need to cope with a lot of counter attacks and the German’s lack of pace could leave us dangerously exposed, just as it did in the first leg.
And the need to not gift anything to Monaco is the reason why I would replace Chambers with Bellerin as well. The young England international did some very good things going forward on Saturday, but his positioning could have cost us a few times.
Do you agree with these changes and would you make any more?