Arsenal vs Liverpool: The best possible midfield is not the most popular

Arsenal need to make some tough decisions ahead of Liverpool, and that means changing up the midfield in a way that some might not be happy with.

Arsenal‘s depth is filling out very nicely in both the attack and the midfield, but even the defense is catching up, slowly but surely. That said, it’s in the midfield that we should be paying the most attention for the Liverpool match, because it’s been a bit of a carousel of changing personnel early on.

Against Newcastle, Unai Emery started with Granit Xhaka, Matteo Guendouzi and Joe Willock. It was a promising show, a bit rusty, but with enough of that youthful energy that the midfield still upheld a certain presence.

Then, against Burnley, thanks to the injury to Xhaka, Dani Ceballos slipped in alongside Guendouzi and Willock and raked in a tremendous man of the match performance. And while it was a positive midfield output, it was frantic and chaotic, not the kind of midfield you want to try to match Liverpool’s.

Which means that, going into Liverpool, we need to see some changes. Conveniently, Granit Xhaka and Mesut Ozil are both returning to health and Lucas Torreira‘s match fitness has steadily returned, landing him in a position where he can likely start as well.

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Meaning that we have the full roster ready for selection, and while it may not be a popular thing to do, Unai Emery needs to pick his best players, and that means using what we learned in the opening two matches to make an educated decision.

That means that the youth of Guendouzi and Willock has to, unfortunately, step aside. Not because they haven’t been tremendous, but because of the same reason that Chambers had to step aside on the defense (though I don’t agree with that one…)—when experience is there against a deadly opponent, go with it.

The best possible midfield is Granit Xhaka, Dani Ceballos and Lucas Torreira. There’s no way around that. It’s the most balanced, sturdy, versatile midfield without as many wild cards flying around in the mix. And the fewer wild cards you can have against Liverpool, the better.

How you arrange those three, whether in a two back, one forward or a one back and two forward, isn’t even that important. These are three guys that can get the job done. We saw what Xhaka-Torreira-Guendouzi did last year, and this is an upgrade.