The biggest surprise for me this evening with the Arsenal team selected by Arsene Wenger to face Tottenham in the Capital One cup game is that the boss has not picked Gabriel, and tha Braxzilian international defender who has just been let off his red card from the Chelsea game has not even made the bench.
And neither is Laurent Koscielny, so let’s hope that Chambers and Mertesacker play well and do not pick up an injury or a red card. They are likely to be tested though, because the spuds are starting with Harry Kane, Townsend, Chadli and with Eriksen in the number 10 role.
Our rotated defence will have the extra protection of tweo holding midfielders in the absence of Coquelin at least, with Wenger going for Arteta and Flamini as a double pivot and it looks like Aaron Ramsey will be our number 10, with the Ox and Joel Campbell on either side of Olivier Giroud in attack.
Ospina
Debuchy, Mertesacker, Chambers, Gibbs
Arteta, Flamin
Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Campbell
Giroud
Subs: Macey, Bellerin, Monreal, Ozil, Iwobi, Sanchez, Walcott
So it is a fairly strong Arsenal team but with a lot of changes and they need to perform well to avoid the Gunners going down to three losses in a row for the first time since 2010.