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Walcott & Akpom START! Arsenal Starting XI To Take On Hull City

By on January 2, 2015

Theo Walcott Arsenal

The games continue to come thick and fast as Arsenal welcome Hull City to the Emirates on Sunday for our FA Cup third round clash. This is the side I’d like to see Arsene go with….

The boss has already confirmed that David Ospina will start in goal with under-fire No.1 Wojciech Szczesny making way. I think it’s the right decision and Ospina now has the chance to stake his claim for the first team shirt after Szczesny’s gaffs at Southampton.

In defence, I think Debuchy should be rested with Bellerin coming in at right-back while Chambers should replace Mertesacker in the center of defence. It’s a bit of a risk playing Kos again but the Mertesacker-Chambers combo simply doesn’t work.

The final change I’d make at the back is to replace Kieran Gibbs with Nacho Monreal at left-back.

We’re still low on options in the center of the park as Wilshere, Arteta and Ramsey are still unavailable. Rambo is close but I don’t think we’ll see him risked on Sunday, certainly not from the start anyway.

Flamini missed the Southampton defeat with a knock but even if fit, I’d go with Coquelin and The Ox in midfield with Cazorla just in front. Coquelin has done very well in the last two games so deserves to keep his place.

Ideally we’d rest Cazorla but with Ozil still not fit enough despite returning to training this week, I think the little Spaniard will have to start once again.

Walcott made his comeback with a sub appearance at St Mary’s so I’d throw him in from the start on Sunday. With Podolski ‘injured’ and Welbeck also likely to miss out with a thigh problem, we could hand a rare opportunity to Joel Campbell on the left.

Who starts up front is going to be interesting. Sanogo is carrying a knock and is likely to leave on loan soon, while Giroud serves the final of his three-game ban. I think it’s clear we should rest Sanchez for this game so I’d like to see Chuba Akpom handed a rare start in attack.

For me, he’s already better than Sanogo so let’s see what he can do against a decent Premier League defence.

This is how I’d line-up:

It’s not as strong a side as I’d like to field against last years FA Cup finalists, but with injuries, suspension and the need to rotate, it’s about as good as we can come up with. Hopefully this eleven should still be good enough to see-off Hull at home….

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