The outgoing Arsenal manager will be facing his arch nemesis Jose Mourinho for one last time in his career when his team will travel to take on Machester United. The Gunners season in the Premier League is pretty much over as they are out of sights in the top 4 race. However, a win against Manchester United will certainly give a big boost to the players and the fans.
The London outfit is coming on the back of a disappointing draw against Atletico Madrid in the Europa league. Wenger’s team had a glorious chance as they played close to eighty minutes with one man advantage. They did manage to take the lead after mustering up one attack after another. However, all their work was undone when Antoine Griexzmann equalised and scored the crucial away goal to give a sucker punch to the Gunners.
Wenger has been resting players in the Premier League as their only hope of qualifying for Champions League is by virtue of winning the Europa league. Former Arsenal man, Alexis Sanchez will be taking on his old team-mates for the first time. The game might not be too significant from the Premier League’s table point of view but an Arsenal vs Manchester United will always get the top billing.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan is back in training after his injury but it seems he isn’t going to be 100 percent ready to take on the Red Devils. Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Elneny is also out with an ankle ligament injury. Apart from them, Santi Cazorla is a long-term absentee as he is still recovering from Achilles injury.
Here is how Arsenal will most likely lineup
Formation(4-2-3-1)
Defence:
Petr Cech will be back in goal for this tie. The experienced man has become error-prone as he has made some costly errors which have cost his team dearly. Wenger will rest Laurent Koscielny keeping in mind the Europa League encounter. So we can see a centre-back pairing of Shkodran Mustafi and Rob Holding. The young Maitland-Niles will be expected to start ahead of Bellerin in the right back spot. Saed Kolasinac will start in the left-back role to give respite to the regular Nacho Monreal.
Midfield:
Granit Xhaka will start in the middle of the park and will play in the defensive midfield role. He will be partnered by Aaron Ramsey who will have much more freedom to go ahead and attack the United defence. Danny Welbeck, Mesut Ozil and Alex Iwobi will provide the attacking outlet from midfield.
Attack:
Alexandre Lacazette scored two goals in his previous Premier League game but having played against Atletico Madrid Mid-week, he will be rested and the January- signing Pierre Emrick Aubameyang will lead the line for the Gunners.
