Arsenal travel to Watford on Monday as they try to keep pace in the battle for a Premier League top four spot.
Thanks to the weekend results, Arsenal have dropped all the way down to sixth ahead of Monday’s match. Meanwhile, the hosts have the chance to overtake Everton, Wolves and Leicester City to move into seventh if they beat the Gunners.
Unfortunately, Unai Emery has another distraction to contend with. Arsenal are 2-0 up in their Europa League quarter-final against Napoli, and they travel to Italy for the second leg on Thursday. As a result, it seems very likely the head coach will make some changes.
Let’s have a look at the team news and our predicted starting lineup for the clash.
Goalkeeper and Centre-Backs
In goal, Bernd Leno will come back in for Petr Cech, who kept a clean sheet against Napoli. The fact Emery stuck with Cech in such a major European clash confirms that he’s going to keep playing Leno in the league and his Czech counterpart in Europe, regardless of performances.
Assuming the Gunners continue to play three at the back, there aren’t many options for Emery here. Sokratis Papastathopoulos is suspended, Rob Holding is injured and Konstantinos Mavropanos hasn’t been getting a look in. As a result, Nacho Monreal, Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi will likely start together.
The only real alternative is Stephan Lichtsteiner in the back three, but the Swiss international has only made one squad appearance and played zero minutes in Arsenal’s last eight matches.