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We have had the Emirates stadium to hold our hands when mass changes caused our level of performance to drop, this will not be the case this time so the players who are given the chance to play will have to hit the ground running. I would be very surprised if Arsene threw in many of the players from midweek as the game required a huge amount of physical and mental energy and when you look further down the line we have the small matter of Tony Pulis' thugs and then the Carling Cup final against an even bigger collection of thugs. That is actually quite a frightening prospect.
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I found it very interesting that Walcott was moved to the left hand side against Wolves when Andrey Arshavin was replaced for Nicklas Bendtner. Theo Walcott is hardly ever moved away from the right and the obvious move would have been to move Bendtner to the left hand side and keep Theo Walcott on the right. I wonder if Arsene Wenger has a little trick up his sleeve. A move to the left would give Dani Alves something to think
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I expect Wolves to play with a congested midfield, especially narrowly. The forward passes of Cesc along with the movement of Van Persie and Walcott will be important. When Cesc is on his game then the rest of his team mates are usually on their game because of the captain's influence on the pitch. Without Samir Nasri we are going to need Cesc to take a step forward and find his best form, hopefully the midweek rest will have allowed
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The Russian has some big shoes to fill but if he can find his best form then he is fully capable of stepping up to the plate and producing the goods. Nasri was very important to the team because of his link up with Cesc and Van Persie, so it will be interesting to see how Arshavin plays with his creative
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Samir Nasri was replaced for Andrey Arshavin with 15 minutes to go against Wigan on the weekend, so that could hint at the managers thinking. Nasri started at Elland Road in Cesc Fabregas' position and could well take up that position once again
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I would personally like to see Rosicky and Arshavin switch positions in this game and start Rosicky as an left attacker, giving our full back a greater level of protection and also harder pressing in the final third of the pitch whilst allowing Arshavin the freedom of the center to pick his through passes and striking