This week sees Arsenal play host to the Swiss club Basel in our second Champions League group game and after the point we brought back from the away game at PSG, thanks to a bit of luck, a win on Wednesday would give us a great platform to go on and finally finish on top and go into pot one for the knockout stage.
Arsene Wenger was already faced with having to make a change in central midfield after the knee injury picked up our warrior Francis Coquelin. Just as he did against Chelsea, I expect the prof to bring in Granit Xhaka to replace the injured Frenchman and that will see our summer signing go up against his former club, although he had left Basel for the Bundesliga with Borussia Monchengladbach before turning 20.
By then Xhaka had already played 61 times for the Swiss champions and helped them to win a domestic treble of trophies. And after just half a season without Xhaka, Basel turned to another current Arsenal star Mohamed Elneny to fill the gap, which he did until Wenger sigmned him last January.
So Elneny will know all about Arsenal’s European opponents so I wonder if it might be an idea to start him in midweek. If Wenger really is serious about using Xhaka in the box-to-box role then we could have both of them in the middle against their former club.
That would mean resting Cazorla, of course, but the Spaniard put in a real shift against Chelsea and at his age it might be a good idea to keerp him fresh. What do you think Gooners?
Bob.