Arsene admitted that Wilshere‘s suspension means that he is likely to play this match especially with the list of midfield injuries stacking on top of each other. I think Jack Wilshere or whoever is playing in that second midfield area needs to give more help to Mikel Arteta because his secret influence on our team is out there in the public. Chelsea and Manchester United have shown that restricting our

It is match day today, it really doesn’t feel like match day, not for me anyway. Perhaps that is down to my concern over the way we are playing at present. I usually cannot wait for match days to come round but today I must say, I am not feeling very confident about our chances this evening. Well, that is if we go toe to toe with our opponents.

We have an injury to deal with after the Manchester United match. Aaron Ramsey who limped off during the early part of the second half will not be available as he nurses a groin strain, Theo Walcott has had sickness in the last few days but I imagine he will come into the side to give us more pace. I wonder what Arsene would have done had both players been 100% fit though.

Arsene has opted for an extra midfielder in the side especially away from home in this type of game, he even opted for Aaron Ramsey on the right against QPR at home which shows that Arsene wants a more solid and creative side rather than two attacking wide outlets.

If he wants to stick to that formula, admittedly one that hasn’t worked very well in recent weeks then he could move Santi Cazorla out to the right and draft Francis Coquelin into the side. But I suspect that would be too many changes to individual player positions. Why make a team searching for fluidity less familiar with their roles. I guess you could put it another way and say why not make changes to players roles as our recent performances have shown very little.

Arsene admitted that Wilshere’s suspension means that he is likely to play this match especially with the list of midfield injuries stacking on top of each other. I think Jack Wilshere or whoever is playing in that second midfield area needs to give more help to Mikel Arteta because his secret influence on our team is out there in the public. Chelsea and Manchester United have shown that restricting our vice captain massively restricts our game and consequently our results.

I would like to see much more interchanging between Wilshere and Arteta when we have the ball. To be fair, Cazorla did drop back a lot more at Old Trafford when it was apparent that Wayne Rooney was following Arteta around as if he was the hottest Nan on the block. Our game at our best is based on fluidity and rotation off the ball and that has been missing from our play in recent weeks.

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up:

With our game currently set to off and with the engineers not being able to fix the issues at present I would love to see us set up differently tonight. Even more so given the fact that anything but defeat would be a positive at this moment in time.

With Thomas Vermaelen and Andre Santos out of form as well as the possible inclusion of Theo Walcott in the side, I would rather we played this game on the counter attack rather than jump into the Lions den minus our sword.

Andre Santos has been exposed in recent weeks to the pace of Farfan and Valencia. As Theo has found out many times at the Emirates, destroying a left back is not quite as straight forward when there is no space in behind him. Thomas Vermaelen does not look very comfortable with so much space around him right now so protection could be in order.

I would be satisfied with us going back to basics, protecting our out of form players and searching for Walcott via Cazorla when we win the ball back on the break.

Schalke had it right a few weeks back when they came to us, dropping deep and then gradually imposing their game on us. Unless there has been an almighty turn around at London Colny since our 2-1 beating at Old Trafford then I just feel like a change will benefit the team tonight. If not then we could be asking for defeat, a defeat that could leave us in danger of qualification to the knock off stages.

If Arsene does push up the pitch which he is more than likely to do then playing Bacary Sagna at left back would make a lot of sense. Arsene has spoken in the past about playing Gibbs ahead of Santos in certain games because the opponent was faster so this should be no different especially after the lessons of the first game. Carl Jenkinson did not deserve to be dropped in the first place so I would have no qualms with him coming back into the side at right back.

But I have to say, I would rather we dug in and played this one a little ugly. A little conservatively. We have pace in Theo. Giroud as an outlet who can keep hold of it and allow our midfielders to join him. We have plenty of time to get our game together but tonight we need to avoid defeat.