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

Wingbacks

I could just skip this position every week and you’d know who will be starting. It will be Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Sead Kolasinac, as they are the only two that are equipped to play this role, no matter how often Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan get shoe-horned into the role.

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The thing about the wingbacks is that they haven’t been used properly in this recent collapse. Not at all. Both Kolasinac and Maitland-Niles have primarily been used as fullbacks and it hasn’t worked very well. Maitland-Niles was sent off against Leicester, Kolasinac has been far too focused on defense (out of necessity) and hasn’t been able to get forward as much as he (and we) would like.

This match against Valencia figures to change all that. With three at the back, Unai Emery can go back to letting these two have the creative and attacking freedom to bombard forward and showcase their more useful abilities.

Not just that, but both are in a rut now, which is a major problem, as this is such an important position for the club. Freeing them up should get them out of their ruts, ideally. So let’s see how that works out.

Moving on to the midfield.