Midfield
After Mohamed Elneny left the field unwell early against Southampton, he might be a doubt for Saturday’s match. Arsenal, however, have Francis Coquelin, Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey to fill his place.
Considering the fact that Ramsey was way below par in the midweek fixture and looked out of touch, we expect Wenger to start with Granit Xhaka and Francis Coquelin for the match. Wenger was once again heavily criticised for his midfield selection, playing Elneny and Coquelin there despite the duo failing miserably against United.
Playing two box-to-box midfielders hasn’t fetched positive results for Arsenal, on two occasions now, and hopefully Wenger will learn from his mistakes this time.
Attack
Although Lucas Perez’s return is definitely a huge boost for Arsenal, his midweek performance said he is far from his best. He needs game time to get back his touch and even more so, he needs quality providers behind him.
Wenger has stated that he is hoping Giroud to be available for selection this Saturday, but we expect the gaffer to start with the trio of Alexis Sanchez flanked by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott.
It looked effective against Bournemouth and it might create problems against West Ham too. Mesut Ozil is irreplaceable at the moment and will start as the number 10.
