Arsenal have a tricky game against Southampton away from home on Sunday and the Gunners will hope to keep their unbeaten run going.
The Saints have hired Ralph Hasenhuttl to turn their season around and Arsenal certainly can’t take Southampton lightly.
Unai Emery’s side have performed extremely well together and have exceeded expectations so far, but anything other than a win for Arsenal at St Marys’ will be seen as a disappointing result considering the Gunners’ recent form.
Arsenal have another north London derby coming up in mid-week, so we could see a few rotations from Emery.
Arsenal Team News
Emery will be without the duo of Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi who are both suspended for the game on Sunday.
Rob Holding and Dinos Mavropanos are injured, so we could very likely see Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal playing at the heart of the defence.
Predicted Arsenal Lineup
Defence
Emery will be forced to play Monreal in a makeshift role along with Koscielny who has finally returned from his injury. Hector Bellerin and Sead Kolasinac will complete the back four.
Bernd Leno should keep his place in goal as usual.
Midfield
Lucas Torreira has made a huge impact already and dare I say it, he has brought the best out of the likes of Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey.
Xhaka and Torreira are expected to start in the two-man midfield pivot against the Saints. Torreira’s work rate has been immense and he is also very solid with his passing, so Arsenal have found the missing piece of the jigsaw.
Ramsey could be given a more attacking role from where the Welshman can influence play more often.
Attack
Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are expected to play on the wide areas while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will start up top.
Iwobi has improved his game under Emery and he’ll want to leave a mark come Sunday to ensure he gets to start in the north London derby later in the midweek.
Mkhitaryan has hit a bit of a rough patch and a game lowly Southampton might be the shot in the arm. He’ll have to be more assertive in the final third, though.
Iwobi – Aubameyang – Mkhitaryan
Ramsey
Xhaka – Torreira
Kolasinac – Monreal – Koscielny – Bellerin
Leno
