Mikel Arteta to make two Arsenal changes vs Chelsea as £55m player starts
Arsenal take on Chelsea in Sunday’s much-awaited Premier League derby at the Emirates Stadium.
The Gunners have made a perfect start to the season with three straight wins.
They comfortably beat Manchester City in the Community Shield before securing league victories over Coventry City and Aston Villa.
The Blues are their next opponents. Arsenal have dominated the fixture over the past five years with eight wins, three draws and no losses.
Despite this, there is a feeling that the club could face a tougher challenge this weekend and need to play at their best to beat their rivals.
Ahead of the London derby, the manager could make a couple of changes from the 1-0 victory over Villa on the road on Monday night.
Cristhian Mosquera was substituted against the Villans with a muscle injury scare, but Arteta has clarified that the decision was more precautionary.
The Spaniard will be assessed in today’s training session, but we believe the manager is unlikely to take any risks with the centre-back’s fitness.
Ezri Konsa made his Gunners debut off the bench and produced a fine cameo. The Englishman could be in line to make his maiden start in the heart of the defence tomorrow.
The £55 million signing was brought in to provide cover for the injured William Saliba, and could become the regular choice alongside Gabriel Magalhaes.
We don’t see any changes in midfield. Bruno Guimaraes picked up a fresh knock in his substitute appearance at Villa, and his workload may need to be managed.
The Brazil international is more likely to come off the bench to replace Myles Lewis-Skelly again.
The other change for Sunday could happen on the left wing. Christos Tzolis has been brilliant on the left flank for the Gunners. He provided two assists against Man City.
The Greek also created two key chances in the win over Coventry, but faced a tough reality check against Villa, where he was man-marked out of the game by Matty Cash.
Chelsea captain Reece James could slot in as a right wing-back or right centre-back tomorrow, and Tzolis could face another difficult challenge against the Englishman.
The 24-year-old won just one of seven duels contested on Monday, and could be replaced by Eberechi Eze, who took his spot at the interval against Unai Emery’s side.
The 28-year-old played more as a left-sided number 10 and provided a crucial pass to Riccardo Calafiori, who put the ball on the plate for Bukayo Saka to score the winner.
The former Crystal Palace man also found himself in a superb scoring position on the counter-attack with loads of space, but Saka unfortunately did not deliver an early cross.
Eze is much better than Tzolis in terms of ball retention and could start as the left-sided winger.
Predicted Arsenal line-up (4-2-3-1) vs Chelsea: Raya; White, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori; Rice, Lewis-Skelly; Saka, Odegaard, Eze; Havertz.
Stats from Sofascore.com
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