Quantcast
Home   >   News   >   Team news: Wenger to risk another 8-2 thrashing by playing reserves against Man Utd

Team news: Wenger to risk another 8-2 thrashing by playing reserves against Man Utd

By on April 27, 2018

Reiss Nelson Arsenal

According to the Manchester Evening News, Arsene Wenger is ready to risk another humiliating defeat against Manchester United by fielding a severely weakened Arsenal side at Old Trafford on Sunday.

We blew our chance to secure a much-needed first leg lead in our Europa League semi-final last night after gifting Atletico Madrid a late equaliser thanks to some woeful defending.

The 1-1 draw means we face an extremely difficult task in Spain next Thursday if we’re to progress to the final so understandably Wenger has to prioritise that game.

We have no chance of finishing in the top four in the Premier League so our whole season rests on the Europa League and the MEN claim Wenger has decided to make wholesale changes to his starting eleven.

The newspaper says Arsene has conceded his team will be ‘a fine line between playing youngsters and avoiding a humiliating defeat’ with the majority of our key men all given the day off ahead of the Madrid trip.

Petr Cech, Calum Chambers, Rob Holding, Sead Kolasinac and Alex Iwobi are all expected to be recalled while Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang will start up front as he’s cup-tied in Europe.

Wenger could be tempted to play the likes of Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka but with Mohamed Elneny and Henrikh Mkhitaryan out injured, we could also see youngsters like Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson given a chance to impress.

We can’t really blame the boss for going down this route as it’s just unfortunate that a trip to United has been scheduled right in-between our Europa League semi-finals.

However, fielding the reserves leaves us open to being on the end of another humiliating defeat and there is a possibility we could see a repeat of the 8-2 thrashing we received at the hands of United in 2011.

Let’s pray the boys produce a better performance this year as the last thing we need is heading in to the Atletico game off the back of a hiding.

2 Comments