In other areas of the pitch, I think we are without injury to our first choice players. I swear I heard that we had a collection of major injuries only a few days ago. It appears that Sagna, Ramsey and Theo are all ready to rock and roll which is great. The only question mark apart from the one central midfield position is who starts left sided attack? Santi Cazorla has not had a full pre season and also came back late from his international game with Spain so he may start from the bench, if this is the case then you can expect Lukas Podolski to play wide left. That said, Santi is Santi. How can you have a new season without watching the shifting little feet of Santi twisting one way and another.

Don’t you just love the first game of the season? everything is possible on the first day of the season. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and I know that I am not the only one who has missed the Arsenal. It is first against second today as Aston Villa battle to replace Arsenal at the top of the table at the final whistle. Well it’s been a while so you’ll have to allow me that for now.

The Villans turned their fortunes around at the end of last season when it looked for a long while that they would be doomed to Championship football, a squad full of young potential and stand out performer and Arsenal fan Christian Benteke. They also have other quality in their forward line, Andreas Weimann who I am shocked didn’t have more clubs sniffing around him this summer along with Gabriel Agbonlahor make them an impressive outfit on the break so I think their game plan may be obvious. Without checking Aston Villa’s results last season, I wouldn’t be surprised if their away form was much better than those around them due to their counter attacking potential.

We will have to be disciplined defensively, something we have done well in recent times. The concern is about the one Arsenal player who is missing today, Mikel Arteta. He did not play against Napoli at the Emirates cup and we were punished on the break during that first half. I am hoping it is because we decided to try out two rotating deeper midfielder’s rather than our usual one dedicated player. Aaron Ramsey performed that task pretty well when he had a few games in that position in place of the injured Mikel Arteta, it was that switch that started his impressive run of form.

There are rumours that our midfield trio might consist of Aaron Ramsey, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere. The three young Brits. I would be surprised if Tomas Rosicky was to miss out especially after losing the experienced head of Mikel Arteta. That said, Tomas had suffered an injury in recent weeks so perhaps that has not completely healed so we shall see what Arsene does there, I am going with that until I hear otherwise. Arsene has spoken very highly of Chamberlain a number of times this pre season and the Ox has featured regularly.

I was waxing lyrical about Oxlade-Chamberlain on my Twitter (@arsenalvision) timeline last night, I really expect a massive future for him, I believe he could become our best player in time but right now I am hoping to see him make the right decisions when on the ball. He has a tendency to dribble first and pass second often resulting in him losing possession. Game time will hopefully correct that especially if he continues to feature in central areas.

If that trio does start in midfield then it will be interesting to see which player takes up which role or if they will all be interchanging. As I said previously, I hope one of the players is detailed to protect the back four and be in place for the counter attack, even if we expect that player to be highly involved in starting attacks from deep.

What is the betting that Oxlade-Chamberlain is the player to play deeper? allowing Ramsey to continue in the box to box role that he thrived in last season? Then Wilshere playing as the closest to Giroud. Chambo did replace Arteta at the end of the season against Newcastle and played deeper so I would not be at all surprised.

In other areas of the pitch, I think we are without injury to our first choice players. I swear I heard that we had a collection of major injuries only a few days ago. It appears that Sagna, Ramsey and Theo are all ready to rock and roll which is great. The only question mark apart from the one central midfield position is who starts left sided attack? Santi Cazorla has not had a full pre season and also came back late from his international game with Spain so he may start from the bench, if this is the case then you can expect Lukas Podolski to play wide left. That said, Santi is Santi. How can you have a new season without watching the shifting little feet of Santi twisting one way and another. Also Arsene no longer likes playing both Lukas and Theo in wide areas because the team lacks creative balance.

I hope the little guy starts, without Rosicky and Cazorla we would lack creativity against a side that you would expect to drop deep and park the bus.

It is essential that we start well and quickly, as I said yesterday the fans will turn as soon as an opportunity present itself so I hope that chance doesn’t present itself. I hope we continue where we left off against Manchester City although I expect our game plan to be very different as the opposition will have a different mindset. We finished last season with very positive momentum and continuing that will be important as a lot of pressure will be placed on the side from the off.  A convincing victory along with a top class performance would do wonders before we travel to Turkey in midweek.

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up:

Come on you Gunners!