The last time that Arsenal were back in action after an international break was November and you can look back at that point of the season and see that some of the decisions that Arsene Wenger made back then turned out to cause big problems in the months to come.
The main one was the decision to keep playing our star striker Alexis Sanchez, despite saying himself that there was a slight risk of the overworked forward suffering from fatigue and being in the red zone. The Chilean international had played in the World Cup before his debut season in the Premier League and had another tough summer when he helped Chile to win the Copa America.
Alexis had also just returned late from two international games in South America but Wenger decided to start him at West Brom and then again in the midweek Champions League. He also started the next EPL game away to Norwich but he did not finish it and even when he returned after a couple of months he was not the same player.
Now we are just starting to see the old Alexis back and we really need that for the next eight games, but can we afford to risk him from the start again this weekend. Would it not be better to give him a little rest and use him as an impact sub if we are in trouble?