Arsenal Vs Manchester City: Deciphering starting XI

Arsenal start their Premier League season next Sunday against Manchester City. Here, I decipher Unai Emery’s starting XI from the clues of the preseason activities thus far.

Arsenal open their first post-Arsene Wenger season next weekend. They do not have an easy task. Arguably the greatest team in Premier League history comes to the Emirates for Unai Emery’s first competitive game in charge, with Pep Guardiola leading his Manchester City team as they look to defend their title.

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Because of the World Cup, the delay for many players returning that it has caused, and the new shapes, systems and approaches that Emery will implement, much of the preseason has been spent trying to figure out how and who Emery will play this season.

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And so, now that the preseason has come to a close, ending in a 2-0 win over Lazio in Stockholm on Saturday night, I thought it would be interesting to try to piece together all the clues that the summer has thrown up and to decipher Emery’s thinking for the first match against City in a week’s time. Much of what I write in this piece is just speculation and based on nothing more than my own reading between the lines. But that’s what the preseason is for, right? First up, my base-line thinking.

The two most recent teams, I feel, provide us with the best depiction of who Emery sees as members of his starting XI and who he sees are merely depth and reserve players. The strongest team of the whole summer was played against Chelsea. I do believe that most of the players who started in that match will start against City, with a couple of exceptions, and that the same shape, a 4-3-3, will be utilised.

That team had Hector Bellerin at right back, a centre-half pairing of Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis, a midfield that included Mesut Ozil and Matteo Guendouzi and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up-front. I predict that all of those players will play against, with only Aubameyang changing position from striker to left wing.

That is because I envisage Alexandre Lacazette starting through the middle with Henrikh Mkhitaryan dropping to the bench. Lacazette has been one of the brightest spots of the preseason and has, for me, impressed sufficiently to deserve a start. That leaves Ozil on the right flank and Guendouzi on his own in central midfield. He will be joined by two of Lucas Torreira, Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey. Ultimately, that decision comes down to fitness. Torreira and Xhaka returned late from the World Cup, making their first appearances against Lazio, while Ramsey is dealing with a slight calf problem.

Finally, that leaves left back and goalkeeper. Sead Kolasinac is out for the next ten weeks and Nacho Monreal has not played one minute of football yet. Hence, it’s fairly safe to assume that Ainsley Maitland-Niles that will start at left back. The goalkeeper position is far more difficult to make assumptions and, in all honesty, I have no clue who Emery will select.

That, for now, is all that we glean from Emery’s preseason decisions this summer. There are still some selection choices that we will not know until the team is announced next weekend. The one good thing about all these options, though, is that they are there. At least Arsenal now have a squad of flexibility, versatility and quality. That will be invaluable.