1.) 12 Sep 2017
12 Sep 2017 10:29:20
Personally because we are at home and traveling isn't an issue I would go with our strongest side possible.
Our players should be able to cope with Thursday Sunday every bit as well as Wednesday Saturday and as you say a decent victory would put more distance between the Liverpool game and going to Chelsea.
We have to take maximum points at home in order to give ourselves the luxury of resting players in some of the long haul games ahead in the Europa league.
Plus our players don't always respond well to having no midweek games they have in the past seemed to become defocused with a big gap in between games.


2.) 12 Sep 2017
12 Sep 2017 11:03:24
Hi Gunner62 - I agree to a certain extent, but I feel we need to play some of the squad players, without weakening the team too much.
Many of our players have already played a couple of International matches recently and with European commitments we will often be playing midweek.
We also need to keep squad players match fit, if they don't play they can lose confidence and have the belief that if they play well they can be selected as first choices.
Interestingly SAF had a policy of playing a set of 'undroppable' players, but rotating the others, which was clearly hugely successful.
Lets say we retain Saturday's team, but make the following changes:
Ospina for Cech - I believe this is a forgone conclusion.
Mertesacker for Monreal
Sanchez for Welbeck
Giroud for Lacazette

I would also consider the following:
Resting Ramsey who has had a tough couple of Internationals, we could bring in Elneny.
Iwobi for Ozil.
Walcott getting some playing time.

I don't envy Wenger, as he has a real selection quandary. Do you keep the same team with a couple of changes, say Ospina and Sanchez in for Cech &Welback or give a couple more players a match? It is important that we win in order to increase the teams confidence. We also havethe match against Doncaster coming up, where we can play all the squad players, whilst the first choice eleven have a rest.

I kept changing my thoughts on team selection as I wrote this comment as there are so many options.