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Star benched, Wenger to recall these 5 players against Lincoln

By mac14 on March 10, 2017

According to the Evening Standard, Arsene Wenger is set to recall a number of his fringe players for Arsenal’s FA Cup quarter final against Lincoln City on Saturday evening.

The boss has rotated his team in all previous rounds of the competition but despite the huge pressure on his shoulders following the humiliation against Bayern Munich, it seems Wenger will resist playing his strongest side this weekend.

Instead, several fringe players will be given another chance to impress with the Evening Standard claiming that Lucas Perez is set to be recalled in attack after struggling to secure regular football this season.

Kieran Gibbs is also expected to come back in to the side at left-back with Nacho Monreal dropping out while Gabriel is set for a recall in defence – although it’s unclear whether the Brazilian will start at right-back or in the middle.

David Ospina will keep his place in goal as Wenger sticks with his policy of using the Colombian international as our ‘cup keeper’ so Petr Cech won’t be involved this weekend.

The newspaper says that Jeff Reine-Adelaide will be involved in the squad but it remains to be seen whether the youngster will be handed another start of named among the substitutes.

Wenger confirmed at his press conference yesterday that Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck and Alex Iwobi will all be assessed ahead of the game after suffering from illness this week.

Ozil made a substitute appearance against Bayern despite still not feeling 100% while Welbeck and Iwobi were both forced to miss the 5-1 defeat due to sickness so there availability is in doubt against Lincoln.

The Standard say that Per Mertesacker is hoping to be involved this weekend and may make his first appearance of the season but Wenger hasn’t decided whether to risk the German defender just yet.

With so many changes expected, the paper says that Alexis Sanchez will be dropped to the bench tomorrow after putting in a subdued performance against Bayern in midweek amid on-going speculation over his future.

So it looks like we’ll see a much-changed starting eleven this weekend but whatever side Wenger picks we should still have way too much quality for the non-league side on home soil.