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My Preferred Starting XI To Face Chelsea

By on October 28, 2013

Arsenal take on Chelsea in the fourth round of the Capital One Cup on Tuesday night.

Jose Mourinho has back-tracked on his earlier comments claiming he’d play an entire youth development team for the game in protest at having to play this fixture just two days after facing Manchester City in the league.

They will still play there back-up squad but we’ll most likely still see the likes of Juan Mata, Demba Ba, John Obi Mikel and David Luiz play, so it’s going to be a tough game.

As for Arsenal, expect Arsene Wenger to rotate as he always does for this cup. We still have a few injuries with Theo Walcott, Lukas Podolski, Abou Diaby, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Yaya Sanogo out, but we should still be able to field a competitive squad.

Thomas Vermaelen is almost certain to start in defence alongside Carl Jenkinson and Nacho Monreal, while one of Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker will also play. My pick would be Kos and give Per a rest.

Mikel Arteta is suspended and Mathieu Flamini is injured, while Jack Wilshere has also been nursing an ankle knock so it will be interesting to see who the boss opts for in midfield.

Arsene has just confirmed on Arsenal.com that Emmanuel Frimpong and Gedion Zalalem are out injured, Thomas Eisfeld is a doubt and youngster Isaac Hayden will definitely start, so I think we’ll have no option but to play Wilshere alongside him. Who else is there to play centre-mid?

In attack I think we’ll see Ryo Miyaichi, Serge Gnabry and Tomas Rosicky with the ‘Great Dane’ Nicklas Bendtner starting up front in place of the rested Olivier Giroud.

So here’s my line-up:

It’s certainly competitive and has a good mix of youth an experience, but will it be good enough to beat Chelsea’s star-studded reserves? We’ll have to wait and see….

What do you think of my line-up? What would yours be?

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