Thursday 19 October 2017

Arsenal's Trip To Red Star Belgrade Previewed & Confirmed Line Up

After Saturday evenings debacle at Watford it's back to Europa League action this evening when Arsenal make the trip to Belgrade to take on Red Star. The Europa League has gone quite well so far with two wins out of two and seven goals in the bag. We have been able to play fringe and reserve players without it affecting the result and we're in a very healthy position in our group.

There are issues tonight of course with the defence in particular short of players. With Sghkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers and probably Laurent Koscielny all unavailable and David Ospina too I believe we might even have to revert to a back four. There is a possibility of the elusive Mathieu Debuchey making an appearance while you would imagine Rob Holding and Nacho Monreal will have to play and maybe Per Mertesacker unless a youngter is thrown in.

In midfield we should see the return of Francis Coquelin and Jack Wilshere should get another chance to impress. It's make or break time for Wilshere and he needs to take every chance he has to make an impression while staying fit. With the issues our midfield has a fully fit and back to form Wilshere could be a huge asset, but one more long term injury would probably spell the end for him at Arsenal.

Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott should be in the team in attack and there are plenty of other options too. We could see Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez in the team as Ozil only came off the bench on Saturday and Alexis wasn't even in the squad. I think we might see Alex Iwobi play though as we need our strongest team possible to play at Everton on Sunday.

After the debacle against Watford last Saturday we quite simply have to win at Everton and they are struggling this season for form and goals. I'm not too bothered about tonight as I think we will qualify from our group relatively easily with the real challenges to come in the knock out stages if the likes of Borussia Dortmund drop out of the Champions League. Equally the League Cup game at home to Norwich next week is of little importance to me.

I see our best route to next season's Champions League as possibly the Europa League, but tonight's game won't affect our chances even if a bad result further damages our weak spirit and morale. If we can have our best team ready to go at a fragile Everton team on Sunday we can undo some of the damage done last Saturday. Having said that of course I want us to win and after the results we have got so far I wouldn't be surprised if we did.

The goals have come from Walcott mainly in the Europa League, but he is a mile away from being first choice at this stage and I don't think there's much he can do to change the manager's opinion. I wouldn't be surprised to see him get one or two this evening, but otherwise his contribution will be probably be minimal as usual. Here's to a win, but most importantly here's to no injuries to any of the players who are important to the team that play on Sunday.

The team is in and you can see it below with few surprises and I would imagine none of that 11 will play from the start on Sunday with the exception of Petr Cech.

Cech

Debuchy, Elneny, Holding
Nelson, Coquelin, Willock, Maitland-Niles
Walcott, Wilshere, Giroud

That's it for today.

See you tomorrow.

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