Arsenal vs Sunderland Predicted Starters

Arsenal return to action to face Sunderland in round three of the FA Cup. As the defending cup holders, here is who the Gunners will send out.

With the Premier League lurking on Wednesday and injuries and exhaustion running rampant across Arsenal, Wenger will have to pick and choose his starting XI for the FA Cup wisely. To run out all the regulars would be the equivalent of a death warrant with another must-have Premier League clash on Wednesday. And yet, to bow out in the third round of the FA Cup would be catastrophic too.

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Ideally, there would be plenty of rotation within the squad, however, Wenger has limited options. He has said that he wants to win the FA Cup yet again so he will not send out a bunch of 17-year old prospects.

Here is what the starting XI will most likely look like.

Now, let’s break down the lines.

Defense

With Debuchy out of the picture, he is not going to be seeing much game time, if any. Hector Bellerin will get the run out just like every other day. Meanwhile, Kieran Gibbs should get a look over Monreal simply because that happened last time Arsenal had a short rest situation.

At center back, Gabriel should be given another shot. He was an absolute monster against Bournemouth and it is time he gets another go. With Wenger being in the habit of constantly starting Per Mertesacker, that leaves Koscielny to make way. It should provide him a nice breather before the Premier League returns midweek.

Midfield

Mesut Ozil is running on fumes and not even in training to prevent injury. But that doesn’t matter. He will still be in the starting XI because it is hard to imagine Arsenal functioning without him. It was briefly considered that Ramsey could start at the No. 10 role with Chambers and Flamini behind him but then I remembered who the manager was.

Since Arsenal is taking this competition 100% seriously, Wenger will send out Ozil and I’m sure he will notch another assist or two.

Attack

There are such limited options on the wings. Without Alexis Sanchez, the go-to is Theo Walcott and the flip of a coin. Ideally, we would see the Ox out there to try to get him some more confidence, but I can’t see Wenger rolling the dice on giving the Ox another shot in the starting XI. This is too big of a deal for Arsenal, even with the opponent being a largely-reserve-team Sunderland.

And then there is Olivier Giroud, Right back where he belongs.