Arsenal face West Ham United at the Emirates Stadium in their third game of the 2018/19 Premier League season, with Unai Emery still looking for his first win of the new campaign.
Arsenal had an unfortunate start to the season, with matches against Manchester City and Chelsea, and didn’t manage to pick up any points from the two fixtures. As a result, this clash with West Ham is looking even more important, so Emery can prove the team are on the right track.
The Gunners should have close to their full squad available for the fixture. Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles are absent as left-back options, but Nacho Monreal is already first-choice in the position anyway. Carl Jenkinson is also out, but again he was a back up even when he was fit.
Laurent Koscielny is the only guaranteed starter who is still out, although he’s back out on the training pitches working on his recovery at least.
That being said, who will start for Arsenal this time around?
2Midfield
It looks like it could finally be time to see Lucas Torreira get a start for Arsenal, as he looked bright for 45 minutes against Chelsea last weekend. Alongside him, he may not be the fans’ first choice, but Granit Xhaka will probably keep his place.
As fantastically as Matteo Guendouzi started the campaign, Arsenal still haven’t found the right balance in midfield. Guendouzi and Xhaka were a bit too open defensively, Guendouzi and Torreira struggled to get on the ball enough. Xhaka and Torreira could provide the middle ground the team need.
Then it’s between Mesut Özil and Aaron Ramsey for the third spot in midfield. Özil is more likely to be able to unlock West Ham’s defence, so my guess is that he’ll start.