Control of the midfield and clinical finishing will be the difference between Arsenal and Chelsea today.
Chelsea have the players to dominate the midfield and they have clinical forwards but so do Arsenal if Mikel Arteta deploys the right players and gets the tactics right. I believe he will do exactly that today.
Chelsea are not Liverpool or Man City, they are definitely beatable, yes they beat Spurs but they also lost to Southampton, Everton and Bournemouth in three of their last four Premier League games.
The Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka combo worked against Bournemouth and I feel it is an almost certainty that Arteta will select those two again.
The same applies to Mesut Ozil, I find it very unlikely that the German will be dropped and he will retain his starting spot.
The one player I think that will miss out is Reiss Nelson, I suspect that Nicolas Pepe will be brought in as his replacement.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is most probably going to be shifted out to the left once again with Alexandre Lacazette down the middle.
So, this is the midfield/attacking lineup I expect Arteta to send out to take on Chelsea this afternoon.
Torreira
Xhaka
Ozil
Pepe
Aubameyang
Lacazette
I analysed the defence here and including them this is what the full eleven looks like.
Leno
Saka
Chambers
Luiz
Bellerin
Torreira
Xhaka
Ozil
Pepe
Aubameyang
Lacazette
I reckon the formation will be 4-2-3-1
Let me know in the comments what team you think Arteta will go with against the Blues.
Imo too many injuries to worry about beating the so called top teams, to me it`s all about a new attitude and the last two games has shown this.
Mikel is saying all the right things and his point about everyone is on a new slate means to me that we too as fans should give the players a new slate and that includes all the ones we love to hate !.
Give the likes of Xhaka, Ozil a few months to see whether Mikel can get something more from them than the last managers before we slaqte them.
I see this as being a tight game where our attitude is amplified to the maximum and all the players work their socks off and the fans love it and get behind them and Chavs shade it 7-0 in injury time, but because of our great new attitude we dont care.
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Ha Le Coq, yeah I’m afraid it is going to be something like that.
I have my uncle coming around who’s a Chelsea fan (my whole mum side is Chelsea and dad side is Arsenal) hopefully it’s a good game and I can smile at the end of he day fingers crossed.
NMC…………..As long as there`s no blood shed………………..I mean at your home, not the game!
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I reckon pretty spot on AdMart but maybe Nelson keeps his place. Or Martenelli, Auba, Nelson
Xhaka, Torreira, Ozil is our best midfield unfortunately as we have seen over the first half of the season.
Guendouzi, Willock although talented have shown their lack of experience and slightly light weight in defending. Xhaka is slow and prone to errors but if he is in front of a player he is likely taking the out, ha. I think what I have seen over this season is Xhaka is underrated for how he moves the ball in midfield and keeps the team ticking over.
Torreira has the berry of pace to cover the back line if he doesn’t venture forwards to much and Ozil is the best at connecting the midfield to attack.