Arsenal face Huddersfield Town in a Premier League clash at the John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday, as Unai Emery’s side try to get back into the top four.

Last time out, Arsenal had to travel to Manchester City, whilst Chelsea and Manchester United had comparatively straight-forward games against Huddersfield and Leicester. The roles are reversed this weekend, with Chelsea travelling to City and Arsenal taking on Huddersfield, though United have another easy game against Fulham.

As a result, Arsenal need to make sure they pick up all three points to bridge the gap to the Champions League places, and hope Manchester City are just as ruthless with Chelsea as they were last weekend.

Let’s have a look at our predicted lineup for the clash.

Goalkeeper and Defence

Due to a number of illnesses, injury doubts and so on, this lineup is one of the hardest to predict this season.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles is back in training, but a strong doubt for this weekend. Laurent Koscielny struggled with sickness this week, whilst Konstantinos Mavropanos’ exclusion from the Europa League squad suggests he hasn’t quite won Unai Emery over to get a starting spot just yet.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos is also now in light training, but it’s probably too early for him to return. Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding are out for the season, of course.

Shkodran Mustafi is fit after a minor scare against Manchester City, and Sead Kolasinac will almost certainly keep his place on the left, so they’re the two most likely to start. Koscielny will hopefully be fine after training without any problems on Thursday.

On the right, Stephan Lichtsteiner was really poor last weekend, but Maitland-Niles still doesn’t seem ready to return. As a result, Carl Jenkinson may well be set for his first Premier League start with Arsenal since November 2016.

Bernd Leno should keep his place in goal as usual, although you do wonder if Emery might start giving Petr Cech chances in either the Europa League or the Premier League at some point, given the cup competitions are no longer an option.

Click ‘Next’ for Midfield, Forwards and the full Predicted Starting XI

Midfield

Granit Xhaka is back in light training after a groin issue, and he’s reportedly ‘being assessed’ ahead of the weekend. For now, we’ll assume this match is going to come too soon for him.

It seems most likely Unai Emery will go for a 4-2-3-1, as he did in the second half against Cardiff. That was the only period of the last two games where Arsenal actually created chances effectively.

As a result, Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira will reprise their roles in the sitting midfield two in Xhaka’s absence. Then Mesut Özil should return to the starting lineup ahead of them.

Unai Emery clearly doesn’t trust Özil in the big games where Arsenal have to spend large chunks of time without the ball, like Chelsea and Manchester City. However, it’s a different story against the sides lower in the table, with the German starting most of the time when fit. That was the case against Cardiff and should be the case again here.

Click ‘Next’ for Forwards and the full Predicted Starting XI

Forwards

Like Laurent Koscielny, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang struggled with illness this week, but Unai Emery suggested the striker would be okay for Saturday nonetheless. Aubameyang hasn’t missed a single league game this season, and he’s started 23 of the 25, so it’s no big risk to predict another start despite the illness.

It’s a similar story with Alexandre Lacazette recently, after five starts in a row in the league. Particularly with the doubts around Aubameyang, it would be a big surprise to see the 27-year-old miss out.

The third spot in the front three is really up for grabs though. Henrikh Mkhitaryan is back and available, though he’s only played 45 minutes of u23 football since his injury. Alex Iwobi is an option, of course, but he didn’t have a great game last weekend. Aaron Ramsey is an option too, out wide or instead of Özil in midfield.

However, Unai Emery was talking up the progress of his loan signing Denis Suarez on Thursday, so we’re going to bet on the 25-year-old making his full Arsenal debut.

Click ‘Next’ for the full Predicted Starting XI

Predicted Starting XI