After resting several players for Thursday’s Europa League win over Eintracht Frankfurt, you would suspect Unai Emery will recall many of his big guns for Sunday’s match with Aston Villa.
Rob Holding will be hoping to get his first minutes of the season but, given he has not played since December last year, you would not expect him to start.
That means the defence will likely be the one who played against Watford. Ahead of them Granit Xhaka and Matteo Guendouzi are emerging as Emery’s preferred midfield pair, but it is further forward where more question marks are raised.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Nicolas Pepe should start against Villa, but the other two spots are up for grabs. Mesut Ozil and Dani Ceballos both started against Watford, but Emery may opt to go with only one of them and bring in extra width by deploying Reiss Nelson.
Arsenal predicted lineup
[4-2-3-1]: Leno; Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, Luiz, Kolasinac; Xhaka, Guendouzi; Pepe, Ozil, Nelson; Aubameyang
