As we get down to the nitty-gritty in the fight for Second Place in the Premier League, it seems that Arsene Wenger s going for stability in the Arsenal line-up based on the maxim “Why change a winning team?”. It has worked so far as Wenger picked an unchanged line-up for the fourth time in a row against Hull last Monday.
This means that Ospina will certainly start in goal, and despite most fans calling for Gabriel to get a game, Mertesacker and Koscielny will be the centre-back partnership. Wenger has declared that Kieran Gibbs has now hit full fitness, but I would expect Bellerin and Monreal to be the wing-backs yet again.
Coquelin is nailed-on to start as the holding midfielder as his brilliant season continues, and with Ozil, Cazorla, Giroud and the mighty Sanchez impossible to drop, that leaves the only possible change being a replacement for Ramsey, who has been declared a 50/50 chance by the boss.
If he doesn’t include the Welshman, Wenger could mix things up by starting either Wilshere or Walcott, both of whom got a run-out in the Hull game. To be perfectly honest I would prefer that Wenger picked Tomas Rosicky for his calm, cool experience in these tricky end of season games, but I have a sneaky feeling that the nod will be given to Wilshere. Wenger is desperate for the Englishman to come up with something special to renew his reputation, but (looking at our win ratio with Wilshere) I would much prefer Rosicky, or perhaps use Flamini to add extra defensive help to Coquelin early in the game, and maybe bring on Wilshere or Rosicky when we are a couple of goals up.
Who would you choose?