Arsenal vs Watford: Predicted starting XI in must-have away match

Back Three

After the Everton match, I decided to rediscover some optimism in Shkodran Mustafi, though I’m not sure where it came from. I reminded myself that he actually does have some truly magnificent outings from time to time, and he hasn’t had one in ages.

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I assumed that he was going to be making an appearance against Napoli with Laurent Koscielny supposedly set to miss due to injury. But seeing as how Koscielny alleviated that stress, let’s just redirect that optimism to this match, a match that Mustafi has to start in, because Sokratis is suspended.

Mustafi is due a good match. Nay, a great one. And he kind of has to know that his arse is on the line. So yeah, maybe it’s crazy to even think about, but let’s have some faith.

The other two are obvious. Koscielny will get the start in the center and try to hold everything together and Nacho Monreal will do his best to remain consistent, if not unremarkable, on the other side.

That’s out of the way, onto more exciting stuff.