Arsenal, Arsene will go for his strongest possible line up and if rotation is needed then you’d imagine that at home against Stoke City would be a better time to do it. Per Mertesacker will return to the heart of the defence, shoving Bacary stumbling over to right back. That aside I don’t think there are anymore returning players even if Mikel Arteta and hopefully Santi Cazorla

Tottenham Hotspurs may not play on Wednesday’s but Arsenal most certainly will be.

Yes, the Champions League group stages are kicking off this evening, France is the first stop for the Gunners in what is on paper our easiest away match of the group. This the isn’t to say that the game will not be difficult but when you glance across our group opposition you would think that home and away results against Marseille would be needed if we are to qualify from this rather challenging group.

There has been talk of resting the likes of Giroud for this game due to the fact that he suffered an injury time scare at Sunderland and that currently he is our only fit senior centre forward.

I cannot see that happening, the Champions League competition is along with the Premier League Arsene’s priority even if it one of the most difficult to win, he will always put these two competitions first. That being the case, Arsene will go for his strongest possible line up and if rotation is needed then you’d imagine that at home against Stoke City would be a better time to do it.

Per Mertesacker will return to the heart of the defence, shoving Bacary stumbling over to right back. That aside I don’t think there are anymore returning players even if Mikel Arteta and hopefully Santi Cazorla are close to returning. That excites me somewhat I must say but that is for another time.

It will be another chance to see Mesut Özil floating around the attacking third, drifting into vacant spaces and playing killer passes.

I just hope that Theo Walcott can get on the score sheet this time as he is in need of a goal. It wasn’t long ago when he ran onto Aaron Ramsey’s defence splitting pass against Manchester City in pre season and then confidently chipped over Joe Hart. With the amount of talented passers we have in our team and Theo’s lack of goals so far, I’d say that surely law of averages means that Walcott has a decent chance of scoring tonight. Weird logic perhaps, but I am going with that for now.

I enjoyed Jack Wilshere’s performance on the weekend, drifting inside from the left where he had less pressure to be positionally disciplined. It was his best game for a while and it would be nice to see him there at least one more time before the masterful Cazorla comes back into the team.

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up:

I was going to make a comment about not needing to be a rocket scientist to guess the line up but Arsene tends to have a habit of throwing a curve ball when I think the line up will be obvious. Not really sure we have the options just yet but we will see.

A positive result will be needed even if it feels stupidly early to be talking about must win matches. I’ve read that our opponents play a high line which should have both Özil and Walcott licking their lips (their own lips I should add) hopefully we will be able to get some joy out of that during the game.

So, here is to hopefully three points and equally as important a clean bill of health.