It was quite hard to put your finger on what sort of Arsenal team we would be seeing tonight in Belarus as the Gunners take on BATE Borisov. With this Europa League tie being the second of three matches in just six games in a fairly horrible fixture pile up it was expected to be a heavily rotated Arsenal starting line-up, until Arsene Wenger started talking about it being an important game and not using many young Gunners that is.
And the boss has been true to his word, although the bench is full of inexperienced players, because we start with first team players like Giroud, Walcott, Elneny, Mertesacker and Holding.
Ospina
Holding, Mertesacker, Mustafi
Nelson, Elneny, Willock, Maitland-Niles
Walcott, Giroud, Wilshere
The boss will be hoping that this experienced XI can get the job done because he has no big names on the bench to turn to.
subs: Macey, Dasilva, Gilmour, McGuane, Dragomir, Akpom, Nketiah.
I do quite like the look of this Arsenal team, with a strong back three to give the others a platform to play from, and with some real flair in the likes of Wilshere, heaps of promise in Nelson and proven scoring ability in Giroud and Walcott.
Bob.