Arsenal vs Crystal Palace: 5 key players in comfy home fixture

2. Matteo Guendouzi

Maybe I’m putting a lot of eggs in the “Unai Emery will be rotating the squad” basket, but I don’t see why he wouldn’t want to do that, especially with Napoli just behind us and Wolverhampton ahead of us, not to mention the need to just stay generally fresh for the duration of the season to ensure a spot in the Champions League.

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That requires literally zero dropped points, with very few home matches, so taking advantage of this one with guys that can do the job, but still count as rotation, is pretty important.

Unai Emery loves Matteo Guendouzi, as we all should, but he was particularly poor against Everton and has had trouble getting back into the starting XI ever since.

That said, one hiccup does not make him a liability. Especially in home matches, we know that Guendouzi can do a job and, paired with Granit Xhaka, as he figures to be, he will have the comfort of a little extra freedom to play his game the way he wants to play it.

Lucas Torreira can definitely use a breather before another grueling away match at Molineux.

Finally, No. 1.