Arsenal face Brighton in Freddie Ljungberg’s first home game as interim head coach, looking to end a run of six games without a win.
After drawing with Norwich City at the weekend, it’s now almost two months since the team’s last league win. Let’s have a look at the Arsenal predicted lineup vs Brighton for Thursday’s match as Freddie Ljungberg tries to change that record in his second game in charge of Arsenal.
Goalkeeper
Bernd Leno is in excellent form and made one of the saves of the weekend against Norwich to prevent Arsenal slipping to defeat. He’ll start over Emi Martinez.
Defence
Hector Bellerin looks like he might be back in the mix after a knock, which would give Calum Chambers a chance to rest at last. The English right-back started all three games last week, playing 90 minutes in the last two.
On the other side, Kieran Tierney should be rested and ready to return in place of Sead Kolasinac.
It’s hard to predict the centre-back pairing, particularly as Arsenal have given us so little communication on Rob Holding’s availability. They haven’t made any mention of his injury despite a three-game absence now.
Our prediction is that Sokratis Papastathopoulos will be back in the team along with David Luiz. Arsenal are unlikely to rush Holding given his previous ACL injury, and Shkodran Mustafi performed poorly against Norwich City.
Midfield
Lucas Torreira surely has to start, as he’s the only midfielder who didn’t in the last two games. We’ve had Joe Willock, Matteo Guendouzi, Granit Xhaka and even David Luiz getting starts in midfield this week without Torreira making the lineup.
There’s no obvious choice alongside him, but we’re going to bet on Xhaka. Xhaka-Torreira is still Arsenal’s best midfield two and the Gunners need to get back to winning ways.
Ahead of them, Mesut Özil should start in the number 10 role, as he finished the Norwich game. Dani Ceballos is still out with an injury.
Forwards
We’re going to be optimistic for once in our Arsenal predicted lineup, and assume Freddie has seen that he needs to start using his wingers again.
It’s unlikely he’s going to drop Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Alexandre Lacazette, but he can at least move Aubameyang out to the left to bring Nicolas Pepe in on the right.
Ideally, he’ll drop one of the strikers and start Gabriel Martinelli on the left. Martinelli still hasn’t made a single league start though, so we’re not going to predict that just yet.
Predicted Lineup
