Arsene Wenger takes his side to a tricky away trip to Selhurt Park this Sunday, looking to get their Premier League campaign on the way after a disappointing opening fixture last week.
Alan Pardew, who hasn’t beaten Wenger in 7 league attempts, will be hoping to inflict more misery on a manager who’s had a lot to think about this past week. Concerning tactics and team selection, Wenger has to re-think his habits in a game, which suddenly looks twice as daunting following that opening result.
Team Selection
Despite his torrid league debut last week, I refuse to hold Petr Cech solely responsible for a collectively uninspiring team performance, and that I strongly believe he has the character and experience to respond. I think he will and should keep his place in goal, as he’s the man we’ve been yearning for since Jens Lehmann. David Ospina will have to wait to get his opportunity.
For this game, I think the only defensive position which should be examined is at right-back. Last week was Mathieu Debuchy’s first Premier League game since January, and he like most of his team-mates, looked sluggish and off the pace. He’s a solid defender but I think the pace and energy of Hector Bellerin was sorely missed, and should be reintroduced this Sunday.
Now this is arguably the trickiest area of the field to select week in, week out, but I think Wenger should look to drop one of his creative midfield players, in order to benefit the pedigree of Arsenal’s attack.
Last week, the major problem we had tactically was that there were too many creative midfield men in one side. This meant that the no.10 position was overloaded and that ultimately hurt the team’s attacking diversity, by playing too narrow. This is the consequence of trying to accommodate all your midfield players at once, with Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey all starting that game.
Wenger needs to be decisive and a little bit ruthless and drop one of these attack minded players, to offer the right balance of offensive and defence, where Francis Coquelin looked visibly isolated. At the moment, it is definitely between Cazorla and Ramsey, who both offer something different to Arsenal’s team, so I’m torn between the two.
However, I’m going with Cazorla because of his two footed ability and neat skill. Having said all that, dropping a midfielder should see Theo Walcott start alongside Olivier Giroud and Oxlade-Chamberlain, with Alexis further rested on the bench to start with at least.
Starting XI:
Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Monreal, Coquelin, Cazorla, Ozil, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Giroud