Giroud benched in official Arsenal team for PSG

The Arsenal and France international striker Olivier Giroud must have done something to upset the manager, or he must be wondering if he has, because Arsene Wenger has left the big centre forward out of the starting line up once again, meaning Giroud is still waiting for a first start of the season, for the Gunners at least.

I really thought he would be back in for this huge Champions League group game against PSG but he is a sub along with the man who started ahead of him at the weekend, Lucas Perez. There is no Theo Walcott either, not even on the bench, so I assume the England forward has picked up a knock of some sort or is ill.

What we do have up front is the pace and energy of Alexis Sanchez, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Alex Iwobi and I assume the Chilean will play through the middle, with Mesut Ozil looking to open up the PSG defence. After their strong pèrformance together against Southampton, Wenger has stuck with Cazorla and Coquelin in the centre of midfield.

The back four is also the same so Mustafi starts his second game as a Gunner, but the veteran keeper Petr Cech is on the bench while David Ospina gets his first start of the season and hopefully we will not see the sort of mistakes that he made in Europe last year.

Ospina
Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal
Cazorla, Coquelin
Iwobi, Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlain
Alexis Sanchez

Subs: Cech, Holding, Gibbs, Xhaka, Elneny, Lucas, Giroud.

It is a bit of a surprise XI from Le Prof but will it get Arsenal the result we want?

Bob.

Tags Alexis Sanchez Xhaka

198 Comments

    1. Wenger unpredictable for once…am okay with this.
      Am sure the set up of PSG would be to stop alexis cutting from LW. They must be confused for sure..

  1. Sanchez as a striker? OX on the wing? Jesus Christ… it’s literally true, OX can look as disinterested as he wants, he won’t get benched if he’s fit.

    Why is Xhaka benched again?

    Well come on you Gunners.. Point will do.

  2. Wtf is wenger playing at? ?
    The starting lineup against Southampton was stronger than this one! ?…. Oh dear, its a Groundhog champions league day, Obviously wenger didn’t learn jack ? from last season.
    Goodluck to the Lads and God help us.

  3. What is going on???? Most confusing starting line up ever! Alexis has been invisible up front and when we buy a new striker we bench him to play Alexis :/

    I understand he’s trying to play more counter attacking football especially since PSG’s full back like to push up a lot but will this work out?

  4. Wenger is very stubborn…. He always tries to prove he is Mr Amazing… never accepts his mistakes and tries to prove his experiments right… tries to be a different thinker which normally costs us hope not this time..

  5. Something must be going on with Giroud and Wenger. He was given longer than any other player coming back from the Euros (consider how quickly Ramsey was brought back) and still isn’t played. Simplest explanation is that he came back in piss poor shape.

  6. i dont understand this line-up

    no strikers, Sanchez is ineffective leading the line, ox is a big call, has been poor with his tracking back as always

    this is a big call. but i trust him to know what hes doing
    am nervous seeing that wont lie

  7. Ospina needs to have a blinder tonight, I just checked out PSG’s starting lineup and they more or less have a full strength squad.
    I don’t know what game plan Wenger has lol ? but the first half of this game could get embarrassingly nasty. ?

  8. This stuff with changing the keeper again, wtf, that almost ruined us last season. Just play your best keeper, I don’t get it. And even if Ospina starts playing great, sure we know Cech’s gonna come back into the team. Alexis up front again, another strange call. We are set up for counter attack, but leave someone like Xhaka on the bench. Allot of strange calls.

  9. Wtf!? Ox better show up. The back 7 are great but why have giroud and Lucas on the bench? This better work…..

  10. IMO I don’t like the line up, big risk. Sanchez is ineffective as a CF. Ox does not deserve start over anyone.
    And Xhaka when he started was class, why spend so much on a bench player could have spent the 50 odd mil( Xhaka /Lucas) on a top striker

        1. Just a cross from Monreal’s side, Mustafi was 5 steps behind and Cavani headed it in.

          We didn’t manage to get a single touch before conceding..?

  11. I hope Wenger won’t kill me before he leave Arsenal.
    Is it a joke? We refused to field our best players for a top competition against a top team?
    I hope we win.

  12. What the hell is going on with this team selection? No Xhaka? No Perez/Giroud and loans behold we are already 1 down!

    1. Aurier, Arsenal fan and Wenger didn’t even bothered bidding for him when he was pledging to come to Arsenal, master stroke from the specialist in something

  13. FFS ARSENE -THERE NOT TRACKING BACK
    NO FOCAL POINT
    ZONAL MARKING…WTFFF

    every corner loooks lethal

    WE ARE BEING ANHILATED

  14. And sad truth is that psg are not what they were just work way harder than we do and manager not an idiot sauvant

  15. Well that’s why we’ll never buy Cavani. Our passing is embarrasing, so easily they get the ball off of us, winning duels, this is terrible

  16. Can Wenger please stop wanting players to walk the ball into the net? At half time Iwobi off, Sanchez left and Giroud up front

  17. Who is in the box? Alexi is either outnumbered or out wide all the time. For god sake Wenger get Giroud on and put Alexi on the wing…..he is not a bloody striker!!!

  18. Cazorla lack of height is a problem we are losing every 1st ball that goes long. Xhaka is needed here. Is ox playing? We need giroud to keep the back line busy. Sanchez is being squashed like a fly

  19. wenger owes cavani a drink
    it should be all over .

    he has 45 mins to tinker an prove he can still cut it with the big boys
    its ok to make a mistake – not if you keep making it

    1. Why would he downgrade from PSG to Arsenal?

      It’s like when we said “nah, let’s not buy Cavani, he’s too old now”

      Like we would ever come to us!

  20. Wenger trying to be Mr. Professor. Tries too hard and screws us in the process. Doent not play the strongest team. Changes the wing and striker position, thus there is no cohesion in the movements and chemistry is out of place. Keeps the best holding MF option in bench when he was rested against Sampton. Keepa Coq on who just knows how to tackles and make challenges and disrupt games. Doea not have technique and style.

    Win: Wenger is Genius.
    Loss: Wenger must have had a reason. Well he doea not. He is a fraud and has no idea what he is doing.

  21. I see got my comment deleted for calling OX a ****. I apologize, it was the heat of the moment.

    But I stand on what I said, he is a major ****

    There, now I censored myself!

    1. Yeah my comment was also deleted cause I called Ox **** hahahahahaha
      I agree with you and I also stand on what I said!!!
      Someone loves Ox so so much…so hope he enjoying watching pathetic ****

  22. Sanchez through the middle has never worked for Fks sake. A mentally stable manager knows the difference between experimentation and element of surprise and this decision falls in the first category. And you know what, one shouls not experiment in big games like this, especially when the experiment has failed in the past.

  23. Nobody besides Mustafi even look like they care… Wenger hardly gets off bench ever anymore. Zzzzz. Nothing new tho. In other news ludogorets lead so looking good for 2nd again

  24. So…. We go out and get a striker in the summer. Now we have Giroud and Perez as our striking options.

    Yet tonight we start Alexis up top who repeatedly keeps coming deep and going wide when he should be in the box or at least the furthest man forward.

    The tactics yet again show we have one way of playing and if that doesn’t work. Just keep doing the same thing.

    0 shots at goal.

  25. We should thank Cavani for missing those chances. We can all see that Wenger doesn’t wake up,learn lesson or just not in touch with reality anymore. Need I remind you,he’s the oldest serving coach in the world? Why does he like humiliating himself.

  26. At least blood perez for ox or iwobi. I’d rather we went 4.1.3.2 giroud knock downs. Xhaka the 1 in front of defence.

  27. We are very lucky that it’s only 1 nil, it could easily have been 3 nil. We are looking absolutely clueless in the final third and to be honest the PSG manager has burnt more calories than some of our player’s lol ? and there’s Wenger making an effort standing in the technical box with his arms folded, bless him. ?

    We need some early subs made here, bring on Xhaka, Giroud and Perez and take off Cazorla, iwobi and the Ox.
    Come on Wenger… Wake up!

  28. My question is… are these guys playing out the game plan of Arsene Wenger?

    Why are they so lethargic in play and full of nerves? What the hell is wrong with Ozil?

    Wouldn’t we be better off with a front three of Alexis, Lucas and Iwobi instead this…?

    I wish Wenger sees it fit to make an important substitution at half time. But I know he will go into the dressing room thinking…”I will make this same set of players play better in the 2nd half”.

  29. Again though it’s just keeping the ball until we lose it. We really don’t look like doing anything with it. All of our players are waiting for someone else to do something

  30. How about we try to play with a striker for a change???
    I mean …I don’t know if any team try this before but we could be the icebreakers???!!!?!??!
    c’mon WTF???

  31. I don’t know about PSG, but all Arsenal fans are pretty confused. We are playing with no recognised striker, having two sitting on the bench, while they have one of the best in the world.

  32. Our strongest line up could have easily beaten this PSG side.
    Does Arsenal have a psychologist?… Some one book an appointment for Mr Wenger

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