Arsenal take on Man Utd at Old Trafford this evening, hoping to do better than in previous games against the ‘big’ teams so far this season.
Here are the official line-ups.
Man Utd: De Gea, Lindelof, Maguire, Telles, Dalot, Fred, Fernandes, McTominay, Sancho, Rashford, Ronaldo
Subs: Henderson, Bailly, Jones, Lingard, Mata, van de Beek, Amad, Greenwood, Martial
Arsenal: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel, Tavares, Partey, Elneny, Odegaard, Martinelli, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang
Subs: Okonkwo, Tierney, Holding, Maitland-Niles, Sambi, Pepe, Saka, Lacazette, Nketiah
Elneny? WTF? Didn’t see that coming. COYG!
That’s mental for me. Lokonga was superb against Newcastle.
Overthinking it again. Hope I’m wrong.
Lokonga saka amn Tierney lacca will probably all play Sunday.
I guarantee none of them will play on Sunday!
They probably will on Monday though. 🙂
Think he means ‘Sunderland’, not Sunday.
Sorry meant to give you an upvote
That’s makes absolutely no sense to me. We are challenging for fourth place with no European football. Are you suggesting Arteta is resting players.
They can’t play every game, rotating a few players makes sense.
You are one dopey fella
You could well be right about that mate, but it still makes sense to rotate a few players every now and again. Do you think esr auba and partey looked like they would be raring to go for the Everton game by the end of the game? You’ll be the 1st person on here whinging if partey or esr comes of injured on Monday saying they shouldn’t have played.
big fan of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but why he used last year’s old Trafford game as a reference for that and not last week’s game I’m not sure…
Partey-Elneny is our special Old Trafford midfield duo.
Does seem very strange. But Elneny was superb in the 1-0 win against Man Utd last year as was Partey. I think a lot of Partey’s best matches have come playing with Elneny so maybe this will get the best out of Partey?
My assumption is this is meant to try and get more out of Partey. It may also provide a bit more reassurance compared to what we saw vs Liverpool. Hopefully it works out.
Secure base given Martinelli/Odegaard rather than Saka/Lacazette.
It’s away from home and they’re most likely gonna play to counter attack so having elneny in there who is a better defender than lokonga makes good sense to me – a bit of extra experience in midfield is something we lacked against Liverpool
United got spanked by Watford last week. We ain’t playing Liverpool again. It’s a shit United.
Different manager and at old Trafford. Difficult to prepare for due to the uncertainty around whether rangnick was in charge for this game. Best to start cautious to work out their system and make changes if needed.
But United are not a shit team; they just happened to be managed by a shit manager. I think they’ll be all gee’d up for this one, trying to impress the new guy. It’s going to be a tough game, so I’m fine with the more conservative choice of Elneny.
The fear, jeez. Let’s hope elneny works.
They drew at Chelsea in their most recent game.
You obviously didn’t watch the game.
Yeah, but both goals were created by Chelsea players 🤣
There are 8 fixtures this month. If anyone has a knock now, or is feeling at all off it’s best to get rid of it rather than spend the month unavailable.
Elneny will enable Partey to play a bit more freely. Partey has to be a bit contious with Sambi in the team.
Expect to see some bulging Ronaldo neck muscles before half time
Proving a bad decision. Especially after never giving Elneny any game times this season. Major screw up from Arteta. There isn’t a better time to play United and he still manages to f*ck it up.
hmm elneny ahead of lokonga is the only odd decision, maybe it’s cuz we won there with an elneny-partey midfield last season…? idk
or possibly lokonga picked up a knock, arteta said that some players picked up knocks iirc
martinelli is rewarded with a start and saka’s fit enough to make the bench, so that’s good
COYG 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
This is becoming disrespectful to Tierney.
Possession is nine tenths of the law…. or something like that
I just don’t understand it. I love Tavares but he is just not at KT’s level yet.
But Tierney hasn’t been at Tavares Level this season – integrate Tierney in matches that a little more straight forward, that we can disrupt the first 11 with less risk. Tavares is ON right now, bar one mistake (albeit costly) – especially against back up full backs from United, I think we’ll shine with him darting inside again, especially with the inclusion of Elneny.
I love Tierney, but his match comes on Monday for me.
Tierney has played every game he could run since his Celtic days due to his personality and the fact his team’s (Scotland and arsenal) relied on him so heavily. Giving his body a break will do him good and sends out a message to the fringe players that if you take your opportunity you will be rewarded. Bound to see Tierney back in the lineup soon and looking forward to seeing how man u deal with the unpredictable tavares threat.
People said the same after the team was announced for Newcastle & most were of the opinion he would be back for tonight’s game….this is not being ‘rested’. He is just not being picked.
Taveres has earned it. I love KT, but it would be harsh to drop Tavares. same as it is harsh to drop ‘Konga. The Elneny pick could be a masterstroke, but if we lose it’s going to look ugly.
Tavares starts.
Unusual line up 🤔
Elneny in midfield. Wtf. Are we trying to even thing up in terms of midfield quality because united have Fred? Sorry, midfield is so important and we aren’t winning this game with him in the team. Saka also a big miss. Not confident.
Just nonsense. AMN must be wondering (again) why the fuck he stayed.
Maitland niles is not good enough to start in midfield. Full stop.
It’s all relative. He is better than Elneny, without question.
AMN looks like back-up right-back tonight with no Cedric or Chambers on the bench.
Good lineup, here’s hoping for a repeat of the result we got the last time elneny started against Manu.
Not great to see elneny in there, but let’s see how it plays out
If we have a repeat of the ElPartey treatment of last season, we should, at least, preserve the 5 point gap between us and them.
Meanwhile, where is Leno?
Not that we would beed him….but no leno??
Pretty happy with that selection!
With Martinelli on the pitch, it makes sense for Arteta to go for the more technical Odegaard instead of Laca. Keeps a similar balance to the attack.
And Elneny/Partey should be good at retaining possession/blocking the lines. Worked last season…fingers crossed!!
COYG
Keep a clean sheet and we are in with a great shout
Lindelof, Maguire, Telles, Dalot, Fred, McTominay.
Seriously, let’s win this.
Every single f-ing game against this lot I feel we have a better squad and lineup. And we even play better on the day, but somehow we end up screwing it up. I fully expect another de gea masterclass incoming. Remember when he saved 20 shots against us when we had Alexis and they went and scored 2 on the counter attack? That was one of the all time worst ones for me. Absolutely sick to death of these tw4ts. Let’s have em tonight. COYFG
As Tierney lost his spot to Tavares? All the best lad we support whosoever Mikel chose to play. Go for the kill boys, 3 points.
Where is Leno?
He broke his arm punching the dressing room wall after finding out Elneny is starting.
Is Leno injured?
Odegaard hasn’t done much to get a start. Is Elneny really playing? This a joke or prank? Wtf why?
I think MA wants to bore them to death with backwards passes. That and he runs around a lot
First game I’m having the opportunity to watch in weeks and Elneny starts?! Really hoping for a great result tonight, let’s GO, gunners!!
Onwards and, um, sideways.
Atkinson is the problem. Hope the team can manage the worst home referee of the EPL.
Hey, the fact that he’s blind and incompetent just got us a goal.
We now need to be very careful as he’s going to be trying to “level that one up”.
Elneny is horrible playing out from the back. You could literally see the panic coming when the opponent bears down on him.
His combo with Partey here, last year, was not bad anyway.
COYG.
Pepe is defo off in the summer.
He is sliding further downward in the pecking order.
Where’s Leno?
I hope Arteta knows what he is doing playing El Neny in the middle of the pack.
Not sure about Martinelli and Elneny starting so I’ll be happy with a draw here; especially with Partey, Odegaard, Auba all below their best form lately. Bit of a mixed bag which could swing either way.
Got a feeling Elneny is going to play almost like a 3rd CB – perhaps what we should have done at Anfield.
Think Elneny had a good game there last season
Huh.
I would argue that the goal should be to stretch the distance United have between their midfield and attack and outclass their midfield.
Not sure picking Elneny is the best way to do that that, but I will wait and see.
I like the selection of Martinelli in principle, I hope he measures up.
And what is up with Pepe? He is still our player, right?
Partey needs to sort out his passing. The more I see him play, the more of a massive, overpriced panic buy he looks.
Partey is woeful tonight
Good to see that Arsenal aren’t being a nicey nice team anymore but are learning to be as ruthless as everyone else.
What in the world is Partey doing? Dude could cost us this match. Why is most experienced player in our side apart from Auba so sloppy on the ball?
Can’t believe how poor he has been. Based on that performance, he doesn’t deserve to come back on the pitch 2nd half. We have been poor since we got the goal. What a mess!
We’re just not a sit deep and hit them on the counterattack kind of team.
I know there’s a natural tendency to do that in the late stages holding on to a result, but you can’t do it from not even half way through the 1st half. Just after getting a lead is when you should really go for the jugular.
It’s also very hard to collectively snap out of that passive mode when it turns out you need another goal
Utd are there for the taking, I reckon Saka will be on to year Telles a new one.
Really poor play from Ben White for United goal. Poor clearance then too far away from his man for the pass and shot. But overall, the issue was a team problem. Team collectively stopped playing football and just defended after our goal.
Second half will require heart and skill.
COYG!!!!!!!!
Fight now! Wipe those grins off their faces
Embarrassing