“League Leaders” – Arsenal head into game week 6 standing at the top of the table with 12 points from the first 5 league games. The Gunners travel to the Liberty stadium to face a Swansea side who are on a three match unbeaten streak in the Premier League. However, the holders of the Capital One Cup failed in their title defense as early as the their round when the lost against Championship side Birmingham City on Tuesday.
Arsenal on the other hand toiled 120 minutes before winning it 4-3 on penalties in their Capital One clash against West Brom. Arsene Wenger however, fielded a much younger side and will have a fresh set of players for this weekend’s clash. From the opening day defeat at the hands of Aston Villa, the Gunners have come a long way and will look to continue their impressive 11 match winning streak away from the Emirates when the line-up against the Swans.
As far as the team news is concerned, Arsene Wenger will be bouyed by the return of Mikel Arteta in the midfield but will have to cope up with the loss of Theo Walcott who is alleged to be out of action for a couple of weeks now with a abdominal problem. Midfielders Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Abou Diaby (both knee), and striker Lukas Podolski (hamstring) are long-term absentees who are nowhere near a potential return.
Meanwhile Thomas Rosicky and Santi Cazorla are making progress from their thigh and ankle injuries respectively and are reported to be back when the Gunner host Napoli next week.
It will be interesting to see what Arsene Wenger decides to do with Serge Gnabry who started two games continously for the Gunners including a 120 minute frenzy in the Capital One Cup. A third match in a row, would take too much out of the youngster but Wenger dones’t have a lot of choices. There are also doubts regarding Mertesacker as the German also played the whole 120 minutes and Wenger might opt to play Vermaelen instead.
So here is a possible starting XI Wenger might opt for:
However, have a look at this possible alternative XI considering Wenger will stick with Mertesacker at the back and might thing about deploying Ramsey on the right (he has experience in playing that position in the past) pushing Gnabry to the bench while using both Arteta and Flamini in the middle to try and stop the free flowing football of the Swans.