Mikel Arteta is expected to go with a very attacking line-up against the Eagles today.
Because of injuries and fitness, there is not a lot of room for movement for Arteta, especially in defence, however, the team I expect him to send out today should be very attack-minded.
Bernd Leno will return in goal, that is a given, hopefully we will see the Leno that pulls of magnificent saves and not the one we saw against Chelsea.
The defence sort of picks itself, there are not that many options right now. Sead Kolasinac will start on the left and I am fairly positive that Ainsley Maitland-Niles will be on the right flank. I do not think that Arteta will take a chance on Hector Bellerin.
In the centre of the defence, I cannot see any other partnership than Sokratis and David Luiz. Rob Holding clearly needs more game time and you can forget about Shkodran Mustafi.
Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka should return to their favoured positions at the heart of the midfield, they have played far too well for Arteta to consider replacing either player.
You have to think that Mesut Ozil will retain his place and that Dani Ceballos will have to wait for his return to the starting line-up.
As for the forwards I am confident that Nicolas Pepe and Pierre=Emerick Aubameyang will start. Alexandre Lacazette is the only one that I can see that could be dropped but my feeling is that Arteta will prefer him over Reiss Nelson.
Predicted line-up
Leno
Maitland-Niles
Sokratis
Luiz
Kolasinac
Torreira
Xhaka
Pepe
Ozil
Aubameyang
Lacazette
Soot on! That’s who I’d go with, COYG
Sue, Good old Sooty! Bye bye everyone! For oldies only! Only teasing BTW!
Don’t forget Sweep.
😂
Ooops Jon… I meant spot… maybe I need to go to specsavers 😂
Looks like the official teamsheet to me i dont see MA picking nelson over laca
Lacazette has been good & we can all see his goal coming,give him his time. Change after 70min if you want but I’d play him
I think Nelson would start ahead of Pepe, because Nelson scored against Leeds and his contribution in defense better than Pepe
Arsenal need players who can click well with their teammates in away games
Yes but scoring against Leeds is different to scoring against a Premier league team. Pepe should start as he’s improving
Martinelli over Laca for me..as he’s more direct and has goals
Auba as the center forward or Striker
I totally agree that Martinelli should start ahead of Laca. Laca can come on as impact sub. So also Ceballos can come as sub for Ozil. Laca needs some time on the bench to regain his composure. No doubt he is a world class player but currently Martinelli is doing better than Laca.
we were all excepting Martinelli than Lacazette to start
Holding for sokratis
Ceballos over Xhaka for me..
I’d play Laca, he needs a goal and it will come, I think he’s hungry so I would play him and I’d keep Auba at the stuff he’s being doing (so long as Laca has the required fitness levels after his last outing). Auba, fair play to him, he’s looked a real team player under Arteta, whatever, Mane can do ..Auba can do it better, because he can backflip over Mane. I’d like us to be ready to make an early change though (JIC), with Auba going central and one of Pepe or Martinelli coming on. I’d like to see Nelson start as well, he has good ball control and does be involved with a lot of our build up play, he and Ozil look for one another and they usually find the other one. I think that will be the defence up top.
This formation is the best we got others can come on during the game
Arteta, if Arteta says jump, you know how it goes. I’m not going to second guess our boss as much as I did to others, I have full faith with Arteta. The players all seem keen, if we are all impressed, how must these players feel about him.
Carragher, I was reading from him earlier, and he sounded like he was amazed already …and how many games is it now.
It feels good to have a manager that you believe in, we needed this, but I’ll say it again, the board better back him to the hilt, really put their efforts into it. If they do, we might make this league more competitive yet, and we need to act on it before Utd and Che try to throw their weight around.
We have one of the main ingredients it looks, early, but it looks like we may. If the board do the next few steps right, we can all have higher hopes again.
We got in our old SA scout to add to Edu’s and Raul’s connections in SA, I have a good feeling about this. There’s a great pool of talent over there and it looks like we might be heating up to strike a few bargains.
I really think Martinelli deserves a chance instead of LACA. Even though Laca worked hard against Leeds he has lost his scoring touch and does not look sharp. Always play the man in form is correct. The rest of the team, because of injuries and lack of other quality choice picks itself. I wish it were otherwise but no thanks to Kroenke that it is not.