Besiktas vs Arsenal Preview, Line up and Predicted score by KJ
Arsenal last season had just lost against Aston Villa and had to travel to Turkey under immense pressure to perform, fortunately we did and the rest is history. We now travel to Turkey with a lot of optimism but injuries and the World Cup means our team isn’t much stronger than the one we fielded against Fenerbahce last season.
Playing away in Turkey automatically means a very hostile environment that could potentially unnerve you. I don’t think that really affects us as we’ve played away numerous times against teams with absolutely mental fans and have come out unscathed. But you can’t deny the potential role the fans will play.
We controlled the game against Palace (if you can call it that) and I expect it to be quite the opposite in the İnönü Stadium. We will have to absorb quite a lot of pressure as Besiktas look to take advantage of being at home. We are well equipped on the counter, however. Sanchez and Ramsey will look to take advantage of any slip-up by Besiktas.
Line up:
Szczesny
Debuchy – Chambers – Koscielny – Monreal
Arteta
Ramsey – Wilshere
Sanchez – Giroud – Cazorla
The defence is in the balance at the moment and it seems like Koscielny will make it. Even if he has a small niggle, he will play through it simply because of how important this game is.
Wenger is deploying a 4-3-3 at the moment with Arteta sitting slightly deeper. We’ll go back to the 4-2-3-1 when we have Ozil back but until then, Wenger is looking to try and solve our lack of creativity with this formation.
Giroud will start now with Sanogo injured. It’s a shame as his energy could’ve really helped us on the counter but Giroud should be ready to do some damage against Besiktas.
I expect this game to be difficult but I can see us winning this 2 – 1.