Arsenal begin their Europa League campaign at home to FC Vorskla on Thursday, and will hope to get off to a winning start under three-time winner of the competition Unai Emery.

Emery picked up the trophy three times in three seasons with Sevilla, from 2013/14 to 2015/16. After that he spent a couple of seasons in the Champions League with PSG, but now he has the chance to win the Europa League for a fourth time, which would make him the outright most successful manager in the history of the competition.

First up is a team not many Arsenal fans will have heard of before the draw, Vorskla, and Emery will likely rotate his team as a result. With four games in the next 10 days, he doesn’t have much choice.

Let’s have a look at our predictions to start the match:

Goalkeeper and Defence

Based on Unai Emery’s responses in press conferences, it looks like Bernd Leno might finally get a competitive debut for Arsenal against Vorskla. He’s had to bide his time, with Petr Cech starting in goal for the Gunners’ Premier League fixtures so far. Now Leno has the opportunity to prove himself at last, hopefully he can take it.

In defence, Konstantinos Mavropanos appears to be unavailable with injury, which limits Emery’s options somewhat. Combined with injuries to Arsenal’s backup options at left-back, we could see a bit of a makeshift back-line on the night.

Rob Holding should start, with Stephan Lichtsteiner at full-back. If Emery wants to rest Nacho Monreal and Hector Bellerin, then Lichtsteiner may have to play on the left with Julio Pleguezuelo filling in on the right.

Dominic Thompson took part in first-team training on Wednesday, but he hasn’t even made his debut for the u23s yet. It would be a massive call to start him so soon.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos or Shkodran Mustafi will have to fill the fourth spot. Based on Mustafi’s injury record last year, I doubt he’ll be risked, so Sokratis should start.

Midfield

Ainsley Maitland-Niles is still out, whilst Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka will likely get rests. Both played for their countries over the international break, before starting against Newcastle, with another game against Everton on Sunday.

That leaves Matteo Guendouzi, Mohamed Elneny, Lucas Torreira and Emile Smith Rowe fighting for three spots.

My guess is Torreira will be saved for the weekend, given how well he’s working with Xhaka in the Premier League. Guendouzi and Elneny will pair up at the base of midfield, with Smith Rowe given his first senior opportunity ahead of them.

The 18-year-old was impressive in pre-season, and Emery has already shown with Guendouzi that he’s willing to reward that.

Forwards

Up front, we should see Danny Welbeck handed a start. He’s impressed in very limited minutes so far this season, and would certainly expect a game on this occasion.

Eddie Nketiah is another who impressed in pre-season, scoring twice and assisting once on tour. He’s yet to get a chance in the competitive fixtures, and this could be the right time for it.

He has competition though, with Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan also failing to get starts last time out in the Premier League. Considering Mkhitaryan might not be able to travel to Azerbaijan for the second group game, Emery may prefer to leave him out this time, in favour of building partnerships between the other three.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette will probably sit out of the competition for now, as will Mesut Özil.

Click ‘Next’ for our full predicted starting XI

Predicted XI