The team for Thursday – details from the pres conference.

By Tony Attwood

The trick these days is simple: find five people who use Twitter and who send out negative tweets and then claim they represent Arsenal fans and quote their tweets to set up whatever negative story you have in mind.

So it is with Ramsey.  The bloggers say he probably won’t be ready to play on Sunday, and so immediately there are lots of negative tweets saying we don’t have a chance.  And all that before the match tomorrow night.

And we know that Ramsey won’t play on Thursday in the Europa League.  But who will?   Here are a couple of possible line ups that have been circulated…

First one that uses Nketiah as the front man and has no room for Mkhitaryan

Ospina

Chambers Holding Mertesacker Kolasinac

 Maitland-Niles     Elneny

Nelson   Iwobi Welbeck

Nketiah

 

Now a different approach

Ospina,

Chambers, Mertesacker, Holding, Kolasinac,

Maitland-Niles, Elneny,

Willock, Nelson, Mkhitaryan,

Welbeck

I tend towards the second approach as it has a fair number of benefits, as far as I can see.

First, it gives Nelson a central role in midfield, which could well be where he finally ends up, and of course it has space for Mkhitaryan.  I can’t really see a reason for not playing him – he can’t play in the League Cup final, and he needs time getting used to the Arsenal way of doing things, so why not let him play?  Indeed Mr Wenger seems to have confirmed this line of thinking in his press conference.

Also Welbeck needs to find his way back to the goals, and playing at centre forward is as good a way as any of doing that – and again it seems confirmed that he will play.

What’s more I suspect that the opposition, Ostersund, will be more concerned with stopping the goals than going for a win.

So, the press conference this lunchtime, has confirmed the general direction the team will be taking.  It has also confirmed that Ozil has been ill – again.  We hope he will be back for the match on Sunday.  Ramsey we are told is back in training, but no certainty about Sunday.

Meanwhile we were also told that Lacazette is ahead of schedule with his recovery from his operation and may well be back one week before the date originally given, making it five weeks instead of six.

Oh yes and there was also an interpretation from some in the media following a remark about an Ostersund player to the effect that Arsenal are going to buy him.   The player is Saman Ghoddos.   “Technically and tactically I was impressed by him,” Mr Wenger said, which is enough to get the rumour mills going.

Oh yes, and Ospina is confirmed in goal.

That’s about what we got.

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