If there is one position that Arsenal are very well stocked in it is the central midfield and even if we played 4-4-2 with Aubameyang and Lacazette up front, we wouldn’t have any room for defenders if we played all our midfielders!
4 Mohamed Elneny
7 Henrikh Mkhitaryan
8 Aaron Ramsey
10 Mesut Ozil
11 Lucas Torreira
15 Ainsley Maitland-Niles
29 Matteo Guendouzi
34 Granit Xhaka
And in a 4-4-2 you would have to include Welbeck, Iwobi and Perez (if he stays) as other possibilities. So that is 11 players (which ones the keeper?), and we haven’t even thought about youngsters like Smith-Rowe, Willock and Reiss Nelson!.
Looking at our pre-season games though, one would have to say that our new young Matteo Guendouzi has looked one of the most impressive newcomers we have seen for a while, and he is very keen to fight for a place in the starting line-up.
“Yes I hope to play, that’s true but this is a big squad, with a lot of great players with a lot of experience,” Guendouzi said. “It’s a question of working, working, working, and afterwards the coach will make his choices.
“But I hope to play a few games. It’s a great environment to work in, we’re working really well in training and we’re playing well in the matches.
“But it’s only the start. Hopefully this will be a big adventure with Arsenal.
“These are only friendly matches so I need to keep working – that’s the most important thing for the future I hope to have at Arsenal.”
Well the 19 year-old has certainly given Emery a selection headache with his performances so far, and I would probably say that with the choices we have right now we would hardly even notice if Ramsey left!
It will take a while for the new coach to find the best line-up out of that lot, but which four would you pick as our best midfield to start against Man City?
Sam P