Arsenal face Cardiff City away in their fourth game of the 2018/19 Premier League season, with Unai Emery’s side looking to build on their first win against West Ham United last weekend.

After a couple of defeats against the big-six clubs that nonetheless showed some signs of progress, Arsenal defeated West Ham 3-1 to get the season going last weekend. Now it’s about keeping that momentum going against Cardiff, who are yet to score a league goal but still have two draws from their opening three games.

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?

Goalkeeper and Defence

Petr Cech looks set to keep his place once again in goal. Bernd Leno seems content to wait for chances for now, chance which will presumably come in the Europa League and League Cup fixtures later this month.

Either goalkeeper starting against Cardiff will at least have confidence knowing the opposition haven’t scored since their return to the Premier League.

Nacho Monreal will start at left-back, since there are no other options, bar Stephan Lichtsteiner playing out of position.

On the other side, I’d expect Hector Bellerin to keep his place, as he’s consistently combined well offensively with Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Hopefully the other defenders and midfielders will cover them a bit more at the back as well.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi will continue their centre-back partnership, after starting the first three games. Rob Holding and Konstantinos Mavropanos will presumably get chances alongside Leno in the cup and Europa League games.

Midfield

Surely, four games in, we’ll finally see Lucas Torreira get a start for Arsenal. His partnership with Granit Xhaka looked promising against West Ham, and he’s played well in all of his brief appearances on the pitch so far this season. Xhaka should keep his place, as all Arsenal’s goals have come with him on the pitch so far.

Matteo Guendouzi is still a big talent, but Arsenal need a bit more positional solidity right now.

Then it’s between Mesut Özil and Aaron Ramsey for the third spot in midfield. Özil missed out last week with illness, but he should be back in the side now, particularly as Arsenal will likely have to work hard to break down the Cardiff defence.

Forwards

Like Torreira, Alexandre Lacazette has surely been too impressive in his substitute appearances not to get a start this time around. He forced Issa Diop into an own goal for Arsenal’s winner against West Ham, and seems to bring Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to life whenever he’s on the pitch.

Unai Emery can’t have failed to see that, so I’d expect the pair to start together, with Aubameyang on the left. Then Henrikh Mkhitaryan should keep his place on the right, after involvement in the build up for two more goals against West Ham, to add to his goal and assist against Chelsea.

Click ‘Next’ for the full starting eleven

Full predicted starting eleven