Arsene Wenger has revealed the team news ahead of Wednesday night’s Champions League second leg against Monaco in which his side needs to overturn a 3-1 first leg deficit.
Defender Gabriel returns from injury and will travel to France along with the squad in place of Chuba Akpom though midfielder Tomas Rosicky misses out through illness. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is also sidelined through a hamstring injury for about a month.
The duo joins Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Debuchy on the treatment table which means that Coquelin and Ramsey are likely to start in midfield.
Santi Cazorla was rested against West Ham United and he should start along with Ozil and Sanchez behind Olivier Giroud.
Wenger admitted that history was against them as no team has overturned such a deficit from a first leg home defeat.
“The statistics are against us,” he said. “The result in the first leg is against us. We are conscious about that. But no matter how big the percentage is, we have to give absolutely everything to make the stats lie — that is our desire and belief that we can do it.
“We want to give everything to have the greatest performance on the pitch. If we did not believe we could do it, we would not be here.”
“Giroud is better today and he needs to play a good game for himself, he wants to do as well as possible.”
“I think he has the international and mental level required.”
Having scored three goals in his last four appearances, the Frenchman is in a good nick of form and has to be on the top of his game to make up for his misses from the first leg.
“Giroud actually owes the revenge to himself,” Wenger continued. “He owes a great performance for himself.”
“He missed a few opportunities in the first leg, but what striker doesn’t miss an opportunity? He has the ability and the right mental level.”
“Of course Monaco have a very solid defence and we will need to be very creative in an attacking sense.
“We want to give everything to have the greatest performance on the pitch. If we did not believe we could do it, we would not be here.
“Our target is to continue to win games, we are too far still from Chelsea, and we will give everything to get close to them.”
For Monaco, Yannick Ferreira Carrasco and Geoffrey Kondogbia returned to training on Monday having missed the win over Bastia and should feature at some point against Arsenal.