QPR v Arsenal team news: Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista start for Gunners

 

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Starting: Per Mertesacker
Tom Farmery4 March 2015

Aaron Ramsey is back in the Arsenal matchday squad but will start on the substitutes’ bench, while Sandro, Nedum Onuoha and Junior Hoilett return to QPR’s starting line-up.

Although Arsenal are still involved in two other competitions away from the Premier League - Champions League and the FA Cup - Arsene Wenger has decided to choose a full strength first team.

Olivier Giroud, who redeemed himself against Everton at the weekend, spearheads the attack with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil behind him. Tomas Rosicky will play alongside Santi Cazorla - the pair of them ahead of Francis Coquelin.

Gabriel Paulista keeps his place in starting XI but partners Per Mertesacker instead of Laurent Koscielny in the Gunners’ central defence. David Ospina starts in goal.

Chris Ramsey’s side have had the blessing of not playing since losing 2-1 to Hull nearly two weeks ago. They are, however, without Joey Barton, who was sent off in that defeat. Sandro, who is returning from injury, replaces him in the centre of midfield.

Onuoha will partner Steven Caulker in the centre of QPR’s defence, while Hoilett takes up his position on the left side of midfield.

Charlie Austin and Bobby Zamora start up front

QPR: Green, Furlong, Onuoha, Caulker, Yun, Phillips, Henry, Sandro, Hoilett, Austin, Zamora.

Subs: Hill, Wright-Phillips, McCarthy, Isla, Kranjcar, Vargas, Zarate.

Arsenal: Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Gabriel, Gibbs, Coquelin, Cazorla, Rosicky, Ozil, Sanchez, Giroud.

Subs: Koscielny, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Chambers, Welbeck, Martinez.

Ahead of the game, Wenger refused to rule out Arsenal's chances of joining the Premier League title race this term.

"At the moment we are nowhere near to winning the Premier League, and nowhere near close to being in the race," the Gunners boss said.

"But what we want is to do as well as we can without speculating on the weakness of any team. The only thing you can say is that it's very tight.

"You look in front of you, Manchester City are four points ahead of us, and you look behind you, there's plenty of people chasing us.

"That will be very, very tight and it will be down to consistency in our results and mental strength. That will certainly be needed again on Wednesday night."

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