Arsenal play Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Wednesday, in what will be the penultimate game as manager for Arsene Wenger.
Arsenal and Leicester City will meet at King Power Stadium on Wednesday, with neither side feeling the pressure, as there is nothing more left to achieve for them this season. Arsene Wenger though, will have a few concerns as far as injuries are concerned.
The likes of Mesut Ozil (back), Laurent Koscielny (Achilles), Mohamed Elneny (ankle) and Santi Cazorla (Achilles) are all certain to miss the game through respective injuries. Koscielny will be the most significant loss after Wenger had confirmed that the France international will be missing from action for six months.
Meanwhile, Ozil also has been struggling with injuries of late and the recent one after the Atletico Madrid game last week will likely see him miss the remaining two games of the season, as should Elneny. Both players, however, will be hoping to be fit for the summer’s World Cup in Russia.
Arsenal will likely be going into this game with a strong lineup, as they aim to get their first points this year away from home, having lost all six of their matches on the road since the start of 2018, a feat achieved by no other team in English league football this year.
Petr Cech should start between the posts just like he did against Burnley on Sunday. Hector Bellerin will be Arsenal’s right-back, while Wenger is likely to retain the central defensive pairing of Calum Chambers and Konstantinos Mavropanos after they kept a clean sheet against Burnley on Sunday.
However, there is a bone of contention as far as the left-back slot is concerned, with both Nacho Monreal and Sead Kolasinac in contention, although Wenger might stick with the latter for the Leicester game.
The Arsenal boss, in his pre-match press conference, provided an update on some injuries focusing largely on Cazorla, who the fans might want to see in action after recently returning to first-team training for the first time since October 2016. However, Wenger had some bad news for the supporters.
“He will not be ready to play in the final game. We basically have four players who are out if you count Cazorla, Koscielny, Ozil and Elneny. Everybody else will be checked because we had a day off on Monday.”
On whether he is likely to rest some stars from the Burnley win, Wenger responded, “Will I leave one or two out? It’s possible for tomorrow because we play again on Sunday and some of them played in Madrid on Thursday and then on Sunday. I will check medically today.”
The changes mentioned could be in midfield areas, as Wenger will not want to disrupt a cohesive attacking unit that smashed in five goals against Burnley. Ideally, Aaron Ramsey should come into the side for Alex Iwobi, with Jack Wilshere and Granit Xhaka completing the midfield trio.
Wenger could yet make slight changes to his attacking unit, with a chance of Danny Welbeck replacing Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang moving into the central striking position. Alternatively, Wenger could retain the trio of Lacazette, Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan for the Leicester game.
