Unai Emery started with an unchanged line-up against Newcastle yesterday, but it is absolutely certain that there will be wholesale changes when we take on the Ukranian minnows Vorskla on Thursday. Unai Emery told us after yesterday’s game: “We are going to change and use a lot of players for different competitions, but only thinking about the best performance for us to win on Thursday. Every competition for me is about [doing as well as you can] and normally you use a different goalkeeper in those [other] competitions, but it’s about giving [your best] performance.”
So Leno is a definite starter, but who else will be in the team. The ones I am sure of from the first team squad are Lichtsteiner, Holding, Mavropanos, Elneny, Iwobi and Welbeck.
From the youngsters the top candidates are Nketiah, Willock and Smith-Rowe of course, and other possibilities could be Jordi Osei-Tutu, Julio Pleguezuelo and Ben Sheaf.
With Arsenal playing Everton just three days later I don’t think Emery will risk too many first team players but there may be a couple of the bench just in case we get shocked by Vorskla, but surely this should just be a training game compared to our usual fare.
Who would you choose to play on Thursday?
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