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Official Arsenal team to face Watford – some will be surprised

If there was ever going to be a day that it would be almost impossible to second guess Mikel Arteta, it was today.

In competitive terms, there is little for Arsenal to play for other than possibly moving up one or two positions.

It is a very different story for our opponents today. Watford simply cannot afford to lose, there is a way they can actually lose and still stay up but they are hardly going to play with that attitude, they are going to go all out for the win and hope they either outscore Aston Villa or that Villa drop points.

This is the team Arteta has gone with.

Has Mikel Arteta surprised you with this lineup or was it what you more or less expected him to do? Let us know in the comments below.

Links to streams will be put in the comments where to watch the game live and free so keep checking in.

Also, if you go to the official Arsenal website here you will be able to get live commentary text and radio.

JustArsenal predicted line up (for comparison) here

JustArsenal match preview here

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108 Comments

  1. Not surprised. New season starts soon, no doubt Mikel is looking forward to who is staying.

      1. Cebalos isn’t our player, he is confidence he can convince them with FA cup success at least

  3. I hope it would be 4-2-3-1 with Ceballos as no 10 and Maitland-Niles as RB:

    ……………………… Martinez
    Niles . Holding . Luiz . Tierney
    ……………. Willock …………. Xhaka
    Pepe ………….. Ceballos …………. Aubameyang
    ……………………… Lacazette

    Ceballos is more creative in no 10 role and Maitland-Niles deserves to usurp Bellerin/ Soares. The vulnerable 4-2-3-1 is good for attacking at home, but they must beware of counter-attacks

    1. Or may be 4-3-3 with Ceballos as free role Willock as CM and Xhaka as base of the Midfield as Holding midfielder..

    2. AMN had a whole season to own the RB position but he made a mess of it. Many have forgotten why Bellerin came back straight into the team

  4. Back to 433. Should be interesting. Willock has a big job on his hands to be that effective link between midfield and attack.

  5. Don’t know if that’s a back four or back three. Anyway I hope we win and there are no injuries. COYG!

  6. Should be playing saka instead of pepe but then I’m already so depressed by them this season that I really dont care anymore.roll on next season and perhaps we can win the Emirates cup 🤣🤣

  10. I think Arteta wants to follow Guardiola’s method last season. Guardiola started with 3-5-2, then 4-1-3-2 and finally the control-freak 4-3-3 when his players fully understood his concept

    Arteta liked to use 3-4-3 after EPL restart, but I believe his final goal is 4-3-3

    1. You know there Isa big difference in money regarding position finished ,for some one who moans about money all the time I would have thought this wouldn’t be a pointless fixture In your opinion.

      1. Actually the difference isn’t big, especially in the context of what clubs spend/make these days. Yet again more non researched garbage lies from you Dan kit, trying to make me look bad!

        1. Might want to google it ,and you have just been called a troll above so you make yourself look bad all on your own .

  13. Sheeesh you scared me with that headline. I thought I was going to see ozil in the lineup or on the bench. #heaves huge sigh of a relief. That was a close one. Phewww. Good one. I’m very comfortable with the line up, I hope none of the players get injured. I guess Arteta is just trying to get us the winning momentum back before the FA Cup final. If we had not beaten Liverpool before that city, I’m not sure what would have happened against. City in the semis. Remember how we lost to Brighton right after losing to city in the league? We have a way of letting loses and wins get to us either positively or negatively. Hope the players don’t get injured (even if they didn’t play today, they could still have gotten injured in training-case in point being martinelli, how a player gets injured in training and is sidelined for the rest of the year baffles me). Hope we win. Coyg

  14. Remove willock keep Niles add Bellarin and that’s the strongest lineup we can field against Chelsea in the final.

  15. No such thing as a pointless fixture when my Arsenal are playing. League position, pride and income to play for.
    Real fans love every game.

  16. Interesting line up .. need quality upgrades in the xhaka willock amn and luiz positions And might be going places … hoping Saliba is one .. but that leaves 3 new players a must if we are to compete next season

  20. Until we boost the midfield we will always be under pressure for stretches of games … not enough movement skill or composure .. ceballos not enough

        1. Don’t know about any links. You can try this app and see if it helps. Usually helps to watch sports.

      1. It was so soft. Had one of our players gotten punished for such body-charge, I’d be furious

  27. Pepe definitely has skills if someone can give him direction and can get players to provide support he can be a real threat

    1. But all the resident experts on this board
      have already branded him a hopeless flop
      that should be GIVEN away to some 5th
      level outfit in Uzbekistan.

      Give MA a little time with the lad and the
      Ivorian will blossom @ the Emirates.

      1. Pepe’s delivery from the right is usually deadly. His cross that led to the second goal showed that.
        I stopped trying to tell people to give the man a chance, it’s his first season, but I got tired and stopped because obviously people will believe what they want to

    1. Holding gave them that and ffs what is wrong with our club so far in the lead yet we give clubs a way in

  32. Mike dean ,just couldn’t help himself given that penalty ,and Xhaka just got booked for taking the ball .

  33. Still can’t get a clean sheet from a relegating team. I think we’d see a major change in Arsenal’s central midfield next season

      1. We’d have enough transfer kitty if we sell some of our players, such as Guendouzi, Ozil, Lacazette or Aubameyang

    3. Offer Laca for Partey

      Sell Torreria back to a Siere A club and use
      some of the proceeds to bring in
      Ibrahim Sangare from Toulouse. ($12M)

      Sell Guendouzi ($30M) and bring in Dominik
      Szoboslai from RBS.

      Szoboslai
      Partey…Sangare

  34. luis lovers how many pens is dat,must b a record..shocking but managers fav..

    2. Really hope he is not a starter next season. Can’t go on with him. Cant go on with most these CB’s. Holding included. He’s been a downgrade on Mustafi which is shocking.

  35. I hope auba gets golden boot. Okay performance overall. So open, doubt we can get away with that in FA Cup Final. Nor playing 2 CB’s. Crossing my fingers for one more Auba goal

  36. This one looks to be in the bag but we never know with Arsenal! They could always do a Newcastle, though I hope not! I hope we have some personnel change, particularly in the middle for the 20-21 season. COYG!

  43. How Arsenal will let Watford back into this game is very annoying. These players are unreliable. The Board better wakes up and sign better players.

  45. Absolutely clueless, our Arsene Wenger v2 Tactically hopeless, crap favourites week in week out like wenger, xhaka, willock, nelson, kola, nketiah…..
    Even George won us something, i see us in the lower half for a few years yet.
    MA has to go

  46. I was talking about how we’re definitely gonna miss Mustafi and how I ain’t impressed by Holding yet, With people questioning why Arteta rarely makes use of him.
    He’s been poor today, doesn’t fill me with confidence for next week’s final

      1. Yeah?
        So being 2M justifies playing poorly?
        If it’s that obvious, can y’all stop complaining about Mustafi then?

    2. Agree Eddie. Never been sold on Holding either. He has not played as many games for us as people think yet he has a lot of hype surrounding him. If you cannot challenge Mustafi that’s an issue.

      1. Holding had a good streak when Emery arrived. But that’s all of the good and there’s been too much of the bad for a CB.

        Might turn out to be a decent back-up option, but anything more would surprise me.

        1. Agree. it was a good, short streak but that has been about it. We are in agreement that he’s nothing more than backup.

  47. Dat Guy is always talented, despite unlucky at Arsenal. Tierney can’t beat Sarr’s pace

  48. Martinez >>>Leno and Allison

    Auba should stop missing these sitters…this cost him the golden boot

  49. I don’t understand why he’s taken off all of our creative talent, and the only goal scorer left is Auba. I thought he might bring on Saka to bolster the creativity a bit. Yet again it’s backs to the wall time against lesser opposition.

  51. Arsenal are shit even if if they win so so poor and if you think I’m wary you are talking bollocks

    1. Why Sue?

      Arsenal have played very well against the
      better teams they’ve faced over the past
      few weeks.

      Wolves…W
      Pool…W
      City…W
      Spurs…Unlucky L

      It sadly is the results against the bottom half
      of the table that have plagued Arsenal since
      the restart.

      I personally like our chances

      1. Our last 2 displays haven’t exactly filled me with confidence, plus Giroud – say no more!
        Although it’s a one off and we do like Wembley 🙈

        1. Their defence is way better than ours sue, they’ve just had a shitty goalkeeper who they kept on the bench against wolves after his poor display against Liverpool. I’m certain kepa has played his last game for Chelsea as the number one goalkeeper. Caballero has won that spot off him and deservedly so. Caballero is a fine shot stopper. Trust me, Chelsea is no joke. Coupled with the fact that they have nothing to lose, we would be playing under more pressure. Look at what we did to ourselves, Tottenham played a draw, wolves and Sheffield lost, imagine the better situation we would be in ahead of the final if we had taken care of Aston villa. Unless there’s a change somewhere, we will remain this way next season. We play middle table teams like a middle table club that we rightly are

          1. I was just going by how many more they’d conceded in the league than us. Yes, I think Kepa is on his way…. Willy is a great penalty saver…..
            They’ll target Luiz next week and no doubt he’ll concede yet another penalty! Put us under pressure and you know it doesn’t end well…. there’s something on it for us and that usually doesn’t end well either… sorry to be such a pessimist, but we’ve seen this sorta thing happen so many times before….. once again, one, maybe 2 results have proven very costly…

        2. I’m not hopeful for the game next week either Sue but if there’s anything about Arsenal I’ve come to know over the years is the fact that you can’t predict the side that would show up in each game. Holding was terrible today but I don’t think sokratis will ever feature for us again except something happens in that game, maybe Luiz pulls a cech on us and hands over the trophy to the club he loves, I mean he was signed to the club twice.

          1. I think a few will be on their way from tomorrow….yes I guess that gives us hope, not knowing who’ll turn up… I think the pain and heartbreak of Baku is still fresh in the memory and another major loss to that lot would be the pits!! Especially if Luiz does screw up… I’d wanna throttle him! Urgh don’t remind me of Cech 😄
            Well it’s our last chance – fail and it’ll be unbearable

  53. One more match to watch this horrible side. I hope this will be the worse we get. Disastrous EPL campaign. Once again it comes down to a final against Chelsea…. sigh

    1. Why do you expect it to be much better in
      the seasons to come? Is Kroenke going to
      bankroll MA to replace all of the following
      AVERAGE players at the club?

      Xhaka
      Mustafi
      Kola
      Bellerin
      Luiz
      Holding
      Torreria
      Guendouzi
      Chambers
      Soares

      Even the most half full Arsenal fans would
      admit the first 11 needs an upgrade @ CB,
      DM, CM and RB.

      Partey, Dominik Szoboslai, Upamecano,
      and Y. Attal would cost Arsenal well
      north of $100M.

      I would step away from the ledge and sadly
      embrace that AFC atm is a mid table club
      with mid table talent.

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