Simple question: if all our players are available, which of them would you put in the starting line-up for an important game?

I know it’s a stretch of the imagination to think of all our lads miraculously leaving the sickbay… Kolasinac with his shoulder un-knackered; Calum Chamber’s cruciate suddenly whole again following a secret late night visit from Glen Hoddle’s old faith healer; Kieran Tierney raring to go… but let’s run with it anyway.

If I had been carrying out this exercise even six weeks ago my team would have looked different to the one I’m about to propose.

For a start, there would have been no place for Ozil (whose Arsenal career seemed to be drifting into insignificance) or Pepe (he was, if we’re totally honest, proving to be a little bit disappointing) or Ceballos (who was turning into the new Denis Suarez) or, heaven help us, Mustafi (no explanation needed).

So it’s something of a surprise to me that this is the team I would select to do battle if all were available:

Leno

Bellerin – Mustafi – Luiz – Tierney

Torreira – Ceballos

Ozil

Pepe – Aubameyang – Saka

Subs: Martinez, Chambers, Maitland-Niles, Xhaka, Willock, Martinelli, Lacazette.

Let me briefly explain my thinking. For a start, Mari and Soares were not even up for consideration because I’ve yet to see them play for Arsenal.

The selection of Luiz and Mustafi is based on how they have performed in the last four or five games. They seem to be forming a partnership in which each’s style of play complements the other’s.

Tierney has had a stop-start career at Arsenal so far but has shown enough to make me think the LB slot is his for years to come.

Dropping Xhaka to the bench is what I would do, but I really doubt Mikel Arteta would do the same if he had everyone fit to play. Like Unai Emery and Arsene Wenger he seems to see the Swiss as an essential fulcrum to our play.

Neverthless, I’m replacing him with Torreira and putting Dani Ceballos with him to provide the link-up play to our German midfield magician. In this scenario both Ceballos and Ozil are the beneficiaries of their recent rehabilitation.

I like Lacazette but his form has been too inconsistent this season, so it’s plank-warming for him and a run down the middle for Aubameyang.

With Saka and Pepe (who, at least to this viewer, is getting better with every outing) Auba will get lots of service, and all three have goals in them.

If I have a concern about my line-up it would be the lack of anyone up top to hold up the ball. It’s not really Aubameyang’s game. However, I see a combination of Ceballos and Ozil having a lot of control in central areas of the pitch and I don’t expect us to be playing too many long balls for Auba to contest for (apart from balls over the top for him to run in on goal).

That’s it.

Feel free to share your own line-ups in the comments.

RockyLives

• This Post was written before the Olympiacos defeat and the Portsmouth victory. I was tempted to re-write it afterwards, but decided not to let one bad performance influence my overall thinking… even though I’m looking at the right back in my line-up and thinking… hmmmm…. not so sure now.

So the result and the way we played were hugely disappointing! We conceded two cheap goals on set pieces where our defending was suspicious.

Leno was again guilty in the build up and in conceding goals and Bellerin was just horrible the whole game. Luiz had a tough night as well. Xhaka went back to his old slow habits and Ozil was also unseen for large parts of the game. Pepe was rather unsuccessful in creating danger and Laca was also not too good but he hardly got any service.

So out of the competition, probably no European cup for us next year and we will also now lose Aubameyang this summer.

But there is a slight Ray of hope:-

Auba is still with us and we better enjoy his goal scoring while we can.

Saka can be considered a starter now for us.

In a sudden twist of fate, Mustafi is now actually our most solid defender.

As we look to next season already, we know that we need new players and maybe a new GK as well.

Bellerin needs to be challenged big time at RB, Kola will need to go and a better LB option is also needed and we still need two CBs as it is time to get rid of our Greeks and maybe send Holding on loan.

At DM, we still need a player and if we don’t keep Ceballos, we need a player there too. We’ll need to replace Aubameyang as well.

But we have Saka and we have Martinelli and Arteta and this gives me hope.

COYG!

RC78

Europa League football is upon us tonight and we have the return leg against Olympiacos at The Emirates. Last week’s game finished 1-0 to us and having scored an all important away goal we’ll be looking to add more to our tally and not concede (obviously).

I’m sure North London has a fair amount of Olympiacos supporters in residence and so the stadium should be packed and rocking for this game. Night-time football is so special and even though it’s not the Champions League, a European game under the lights has that inspiring feel about it. Now that we’re in the knock out stages of the competition there will also be a nervous edge. With the big prize of Champions League football for the winner of this competition every care must be taken to progress.

This was Arteta’s response when asked about how important European football was to the club and whether it affected his team selection.

“We have three different routes to Europe. We have to try to maximise the three of them and we go game by game,” he said.

“That’s all we can do at the moment because the objectives are still so far behind.”

It’s quite difficult to predict Mikel’s line up for games now that we know that he chooses players on their performance in training rather than reputation. I’m hoping that Saka managed some rest after Sunday but was also able to impress Arteta so that he is included tonight. We are short of left-backs now that Kolasinac is injured too.

Tonight I would hope to see Pepe, Martinelli and Lacazette ……… so how does he fit Aubameyang in?

Bellerin should return at right-back with Mustafi (first name on the team sheet after recent performances) and Luiz paired at centre-back.

Torreira should start alongside Xhaka with hopefully Ozil just behind the front three. Only who will the front three be? The FA Cup game on Monday could see some of these rested so lets play the best team tonight and progress in the competion.

Here’s my stab at a team …….

Leno

Bellerin   Mustafi   Luiz   Saka

Torreira   Xhaka

Ozil

Pepe   Lacazette   Aubameyang

It’s snowing heavily out of my window which is not great but according to all sources it’ll stop by midday. I’m looking forward to the game.

COYG

peachesgooner

A few random thoughts from the game from RockyLives …

What was Kola doing for the Everton opener? We have been excellent at holding a high defensive line on set pieces and on this occasion everyone did just that… except Kola, who went racing after Mina like a dog after a cat. It directly led to the goal as two or three Evertonians would have been offside from the free kick if he had held his position.

Luiz’s weak header didn’t help. But after the ball came back in I don’t understand how that goal was allowed to stand. I thought they had changed the rules about high feet in crowded areas, making it an automatic offence? Calvert-Lewin’s foot actually hit Luiz on the head (and if the Brazilian had gone down I’m sure the goal would have been disallowed). Have they rescinded that clampdown on high feet this season?

Maybe Kola’s injury (looked like a dislocated shoulder) was a blessing in disguise as it brought Saka on and led to our equaliser. Saka’s form continues to be spectacular (Sorry Sead…I feel bad making this point).

Xhaka played well overall (good pass to start the move leading to Eddie’s goal) but several times he passed straight to the opposition. Admittedly they were forward (progressive) passes, but I’ve noticed that he telegraphs his passes sometimes and oppo players are often able to anticipate them.

Richarlison is a nasty piece of work, but I loved how quickly Bellerin got in his face when he had the gall to start berating Ceballos after just clobbering him.

Auba played a captain’s innings today. Great work covering back at times.

I see Leno’s taken stick for Everton’s second. I’ve looked at it about 20 times and I think he was unlucky and pretty much did all he could have done. He made himself big and did all he could to make a block but the ball took an unlucky rebound. We need GiE to weigh in on this one from the Goalkeepers’ Union…

Ceballos and Ozil were excellent. Leno too.

Mustafi was a close run call for MotM in my opinion (I know RC disagrees) but it should go to Auba for his two goals and all round play.

Eddie took his goal so well. That was an encouraging moment.

Pepe is starting to feel like he deserves his place in the team.

I thought Torreira was sloppy when he came on. It can be hard to get straight into the pace of the game when you come on as a sub, but Terrier put us in trouble several times. Maybe explains why Arteta is not starting him?

Overall, we may have ridden our luck a bit at times but I felt we were the better team for most of the game, even though Everton played very well.

Project Mikel continues to inspire confidence!

RockyLives

And these Players Ratings from RC78

Leno had a great second half and kept us ahead. Bellerin seems our weakest player these days.

Mustafi and Luiz did not have a good day in the office but kept their cool and did not make any major howler. I was really impressed by Lewin and Richarlison – quality players.

Xhaka and Ceba did not play great in the first 15 mins and in the last 30 mins but Ceba put in a lot of efforts.

Pepe had a frustrating game I thought but he delivers an assist and did show some glimpses again – I think he really needs to read the game better in terms of pacing his runs because he seems at time either too far ahead or too far back.

The Saka-Auba axis on the left worked wonders again but Saka needs a rest. Maybe Soares will come in now.

As for Nketiah, he took his goal really well and could have gotten another one – his work rate was good but he also had many poor touches.

So another win but a more worrying one as we saw some of the ugly Arsenal face with the defensive gaps and playing too deep at times. Happy with the win but Arteta must find a way to make us more compact still. 4 points behind 4th place and 3 points ahead of 12th place – strange league this year.

COYG!

Leno – 7.5

Bellerin – 5.5

Mustafi – 6

Luiz – 6

Saka – 7

Ozil – 6.5

Ceballos – 6.5

Xhaka – 6

Pepe – 6

Nketiah – 7

Auba – 7.5

Kola – no grades and Douzi neither, not enough playing time.