After Danny Welbeck enjoyed a dream return to the Arsenal team with a goal after less than 10 minutes and an absolutely crucial and well taken goal as well, I have been seeing various reports suggesting that the England international is set to be rewarded for his role as super sub against Leicester with a first start of the season against Hull on Sunday.
The Evening Standard goes even further and talks about the changes to the Arsenal starting XI as though they have been granted special knowledge from Arsene Wenger himself.
Along with Welbeck, the paper says that Wenger will hand FA cup starts to Theo Walcott, Mohamed Elneny, Mathieu Flamini, Calum Chambers, Kieran Gibbs and David Ospina but I am not so sure, especially about the shape of our attack. The report claims that Danny is set to start in place of Giroud with Wenger saving the Frenchman for Barcelona but would it not make more sense the other way around.
Against Hull we are going to dominate the ball and have a deep defence to break down and this is where Giroud’s strength, aerial ability and link up play come into their own. Against Barca it will be Arsenal defending for our lives and hoping to hit them on the counter attack which is where the pace of Welbeck and Walcott could be crucial.
I do think that Wenger will save Alexis Sanchez to face his former club and with those three up front and Ozil to feed them we have a chance. Against Hull I can see Arsenal starting with Campbell and the Ox on either side of Giroud and with Alex Iwobi in the number 10 role. That would give us some pace but also good technical ability mixed with power.
Is this how you would line Arsenal up for these two matches?