That midfield three has a little bit of everything, well apart from being able to deal with being pressed. That aside, we have a player in Ramsey who can get forward and cause mismatches in the final third, Xhaka can break lines with his passing and Coquelin can do his Police Officer role in protecting those around him. While the front three can have pretty much all the freedom they need to pull Bournemouth around
At least our squad will be boosted by the returning Euro boys. Mesut Özil, Laurent Koscielny and Oliver Giroud should all hopefully return but I'd be surprised to see anyone but Koscielny start the game for obvious reasons. Even that could be considered a sizeable gamble given his lack of pre season but then equally losing the game due to a defensive mistake, without our best defender starting could be also seen as a gamble. I can hear the cries either way. Koscielny limps off after 25 minutes and Arsène will be criticised for not holding him back. Lose the game and he'd be an idiot for not starting the Frenchman
The manager has already ruled out Koscielny from making an early return which is probably the sensible option, although I'd have felt a lot more secure if he was starting this afternoon, so I suspect that Monreal will move back into centre back as cover and Kieran Gibbs will start at left back. Nacho Monreal was our best centre back the last time we had a defensive crisis and that is often overlooked due to our lack of options at the time, the narrative really kicked in during that time. Reports a few days ago suggested that Arsene could turn to Mathieu Debuchy
You have to imagine that Mesut will have to deal with more and more attention both on and off the pitch given his stupendous form. The good news however is that Mesut Özil is no ordinary footballer, is he? He is the master of finding space where there seems to be very little. Imagine how tough it would be to mark a player like that. You can be next to him one moment, watching the ball then you turn around and Özil is on the opposite side of the pitch in a neat little pocket of space that didn't even exist only a moment or two before
They have lost 5 of their last 6 games, the only point they managed was a 1-1 draw to bottom of the table Aston Villa during that sequence. They were thumped 6-1 at St Mary's on December 2nd by Liverpool and they have not recovered. So I am very much in two minds here. Part of me says we should batter them after our confidence boosting 2-1 win against Manchester City and the Saints woeful form but the worried part of my brain says that teams love to bounce back against Arsenal.
I am hopeful that we can do the same to City tonight. They have a wealth of attacking quality going forward and have been suspect defensively. Perhaps the best way of stopping their offensive players will be to win the ball back before it gets to the likes of Silva, De Bruyne, et al. If we are to play that way it would be kinda helpful to have Alexis Sanchez fit and starting on the flank, Arsène has understandably kept his decision tucked away under his hat. Arsène said that Alexis was running but hadn't started ball work, but you cannot take much of what he says about the team pre match at face value.
Ramsey's running gave him the opportunity to get a goal and an assist to his name but in other matches the dice may fall on the wrong side, especially if Flamini continues to abandon his station. There was talk of Calum Chambers being brought into the side in between Flamini and Ramsey but I just don't see that happening, especially as he has not started in that position since our defeat at Southampton roughly 11 months ago. I think Arsène would rather go with the players he has put his faith in so far, players who have had at least a bit of a feel for the team
I am hoping beyond hope that the trio of Cazorla, Alexis and Özil can continue where they left off in midweek. When those players produce that level of football you can almost allow the rest of the team to focus on being defensively stable and not making mistakes because you know one of those three will do something special during the course of 90 minutes to find a breakthrough or two. The understanding between the three was evident against Zagreb. The understanding between Cazorla and Özil seems obvious while the Özil and Alexis duo seems to be flourishing more and more. Norwich cannot be seen as pushovers though, it took a big effort from Chelsea to squeeze past the Canaries by a single goal last weekend, Norwich have really attempted to tighten up defensively ever since Newcastle stuck six past them in October so it might have to be a case of looking back at what went wrong against West Brom and sticking to what went well
The games have come thick and fast in recent weeks, not only that but we have also played against Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Everton. Three teams who are good at keeping the ball so we have had plenty of chasing around to do, so the Capital One Cup is a good chance to give those desperate for a game, a chance to gain some vital match sharpness but perhaps more importantly rest some weary limbs. And I imagine we have a few of those.