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TEAM: My Preferred Starting XI To Play Newcastle: No Ozil Or Giroud

By on December 27, 2013

Arsenal will be at St James Park on Sunday to take on Newcastle United with another vital three points up for grabs.

Thursday’s 3-1 win over West Ham saw us move back to the top of the Premier League and with Chelsea playing Liverpool in Sunday’s other big game, we have a great chance to widen the gap.

Arsene Wenger has confirmed he’s going to have to make changes to his starting eleven in order to keep the team fresh during this gruelling festive period that see’s us take on Cardiff on Wednesday.

I think we could see Mesut Ozil and Olivier Giroud finally rested which might mean Lukas Podolski starting up front. The German came off the bench to change the game at Upton Park and is surely a better option than Nicklas Bendtner?

Jack Wilshere will return from his two-match ban and may play on the left-wing if Wenger decides to go with Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini in midfield. Tomas Rosicky is also likely to start having not featured against the Hammers so this could see Santi Cazorla rested after his MOTM display on Thursday.

It would be a shame to see Cazorla dropped after such a positive outing but we need to keep the players fresh as we’ve seen what can happen if a player is over-played with Aaron Ramsey picking up a thigh injury that’s likely to keep him out for a few weeks.

Nacho Monreal could come in for Kieran Gibbs at left-back but I think we’ll see Thomas Vermaelen keep his place in defence as the boss doesn’t want to rush Laurent Koscielny back too soon from his knee injury.

Here’s my preferred team:

What do you think of my team? 

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