Arsenal vs Valencia predicted XI: Someone, anyone, make this work

Arsenal have no choice but to bounce back against Valencia, so here is how Unai Emery should line up to accomplish this feat.

This season has been just as stressful as we should have expected it to be. Arsenal never make things easy on us fans, and just as the top four, even third place, looked within our grasp (and it was!) we have fallen into fifth and are again relying on other sides to slip up in order to ensure a top four finish this season.

It’s not all that alarming, seeing as how this is all a work in progress, but the season has been so unpredictable that it’s honestly hard to diagnose what to expect out of this team on any given match day, home or away.

The good news is that in the “certain death” tie against Napoli, the Gunners were nothing short of perfect. They won 2-0 at home and 1-0 in Italy. That’s some kind of bragging rights there, and it’s something that should give us all hope going into a tie against Valencia after three straight league losses.

Three straight worsening losses, I should add, as each loss not only got worse in the scoreline (3-2, 3-1, 3-0) but the performances themselves were just… blegh.

But now we move on! Valencia is next, and if they don’t fill you with the same trepidation that accompanied the tie against Napoli, you’re not alone. The biggest point of fear just comes form being so emasculated in the past few matches. But separating the Europa League and the Premier League has seemingly come naturally, so there’s no reason to think that poor Premier League form will seep over in the the Europa League.

Not least of all because Unai Emery should be able to return to his preferred formation, the same formation that has delivered the most promising results. And that is the 3-5-2. When it works, it really works, and while we don’t have Aaron Ramsey, we do have other necessary pieces to make this a success.

So let’s start in goal.

Keeper

This is Petr Cech‘s competition, and while I still have more faith in Bernd Leno, Cech has what it takes to see this through to completion.

Onward to the back three.