Arsenal will play an important match on Saturday against Manchester City, after two disappointing results in the last days (0-6 visiting Chelsea and 2-2 hosting Swansea City). The boss Arsène Wenger will surely play with his usual scheme 4-2-3-1. He hasn’t got any suspended player, but unfortunately, he does have many players out for this match due to injuries.
The goalkeeper will be Wojciech Szczesny, since he’s the boss’ favorite and plays almost all matches.
In defense, Wenger can’t rely on center-back Laurent Koscielny, who got a calf injury in the match against Chelsea. Thomas Vermaelen will take his place for sure, as he did in the clash against Swansea, while the rest of the defense will be the usual ones: Bacary Sagna in the right back, Per Mertesacker in the center and Kieran Gibbs in the left back.
The midfield is surely giving the manager a big headache: in the last weeks, two midfielders got injured, Mesut Özil and Jack Wilshere, and they add to the list of Aaron Ramsey and Theo Walcott, who got injured some months ago. Not one of these players will be playing on Saturday, but Arsenal still have other great players in the middle of the pitch that will hopefully replace the injured ones with good performances.
I think Wenger will rely on Mathieu Flamini in the defensive midfield, since Manchester City has one of the greatest attacks of the Premier League and Flamini is the most defensive midfielder of the Gunners. In my opinion, Mikel Arteta will be his partner, since a different choice would be more offensive, and I think Wenger will keep the defensive midfield the most defensive he can, while he’ll put the offensive players only in the offensive midfield.
In that fashion, I think Lukas Podolski will play in the left offensive midfield. He’s the player who can give more goal threat to the Gunners’ midfield, and if Wenger wants to defeat City instead of winning only one point, he’ll rely on him. In addition, he made a goal against Swansea and that may give him some confidence.
The rest of the offensive midfield will be occupied, I think, by Santi Cazorla in the right and Tomas Rosicky in the center, while Oxlade-Chamberlain and Serge Gnabry will go to the bench.
The striker will be Olivier Giroud. The Frenchman is the boss’ favorite and I don’t think he’ll rest him. Yaya Sanogo, as his natural substitute, will get into the match only if Giroud gets injured or has a bad game.
