Arsene Wenger has gone with an almost completely different Arsenal starting line-up to the one that took the French club Lyon apart yesterday, with just our club record signing Mesut Ozil keeping his place. The manager must be very happy with the fitness of the German international to play him again so soon and he is clearly happy with Ozil’s form.
Quite a few of the stars of yesterday are on the bench for the game against Wolfsburg today, such as Ramsey, Giroud, Iwobi and the Ox, while Jack Wilshere and Petr Cech who were not involved against Lyon get the starts that the manager promised against the Germans.
Cech
Bellerin, Chambers, Gabriel, Monreal
Arteta, Cazorla
Reine-Adelaide, Ozil, Wilshere
Walcott
Arsenal subs: Martinez, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Giroud, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Akpom, Coquelin, Hayden, Iwobi
Another interesting bit of news is that the former Gunners striker Nicklas Bendtner will start and I’m sure he will be keen to show the Arsenal fans what he can do, although I am more worried about Kevin De Bruyne and Andre Schurrle. Our defence will need to be switched on, especially with Arteta instead of Coquelin protecting them.
And I am also hoping that Jack Wilshere gets some time in the middle rather than being stuck out wide the whole time, although with Arsenal needing a couple of goals to win the Emirates Cup then he could have fun going forward, with the pace of Walcott in the middle to link up with.
Surely that trophy is staying in north London this time isn’t it?