There is no doubt that Arsene Wenger will want his strongest possible Arsenal line-up to start the Premier League clash with Liverpool. But as quite a few of the Gunners had been in need of a rest before this international break and with the game being a vital one and kicking off early on Saturday, I wonder if the boss might just take the possible fatigue and recent workloads of his players into account.
The Frenchman has been speaking about the importance of energy levels this week and that could well be because he has it in mind. Unfortunately for him, and unsurprisingly, the players that have been most heavily used by their countries are the most influential in the Arsenal team.
Mesut Ozil completed both games for Germany, Alexis Sanchez played a game and a a half for Chile, Olivier Giroud played the whole of France’s second game and some of the first, Santi Cazorla played most of Spain’s second game and 15 minutes of their first and Aaron Ramsey played the whole 90 minutes for Wales.
However, Ramsey has not played since Saturday while Giroud, Alexis and Ozil last played on Sunday, so you would think they would be fine on Saturday. The two biggest concerns would be Cazorla and Kieran Gibbs who both played significant amounts of time on Tuesday night. But with Rosicky having sat out the second Czech Republic game on the same night and with Nacho Monreal having stayed at home, Wenger has ready made replacements.
The question is, should he and will he use them?