Following their disappointing draws against Wolves in the Premier League and Vitoria SC in the Europa League, Arsenal will face an in-form Leicester City side today.
The Gunners have been inconsistent and have appeared listless on the pitch on more than one occasion this season.
This will be a daunting task and despite Arsenal possessing a tremendous amount of firepower in attack, they might well go into the game as second favourites.
Arsenal Team News
Dani Ceballos suffered a hamstring injury against Vitoria SC and will be unavailable for selection. Meanwhile, Granit Xhaka is not yet ready to feature for the north London based outfit and will be absent this weekend as well.
Predicted Arsenal Lineup vs Leicester City (3-4-1-2)
CENTRE-BACKS
Emery might look to continue with the 3-man at the back formation he tried out in midweek. In such a case, Calum Chambers, David Luiz and Sokratis will be picked in defence in front of Bernd Leno in the Arsenal lineup.
The 3 central defenders will be confident of neutralising the threat of Jamie Vardy who will look to be the tormentor-in-chief.
WING-BACKS
Hector Bellerin is expected to start as the right wing-back having been rested in Portugal while on the opposite flank, we feel Sead Kolasinac will be picked ahead of Kieran Tierney, with the latter having played 180 minutes in the last week alone.
MIDFIELD
Matteo Guendouzi has been one of the silver linings for Arsenal this season and the talented French prodigy is expected to start in the central midfield alongside Uruguayan international Lucas Torreira.
While Torreira brings a lot of resilience to his side’s setup, Guendouzi injects an ample amount of energy and precision. The 20-year-old, after 11 league games, averages an impressive pass completion rate of 87.9%.
Attack
In the absence of Ceballos, Mesut Ozil might be picked by Emery to operate as the lone central attacking midfielder. It will be a good chance for Ozil to impress his manager and cement his place in the Arsenal lineup if he starts.
We are going with the attacking duo of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang upfront for the Gunners who should, ideally, still look to take the attack to the opposition.
ARSENAL LINEUP
Statistics Credits: WhoScored
the whole problem with Arsenal for almost a year now is playing over-defensively. Instead of playing to our strengths–dominating possession and attack–we rely on our weaknesses and hand the initiative to our opponents by emphasizing defence–which we do badly. More of a bad thing doesn’t win games and with the lineup above, it’s hard to see us taking the game to Leicester and winning. This formation is basically the team turtling as a group and screaming “don’t hurt us!”