The Arsenal v Aston Villa, Sunday 14 April, 4.30pm

[Mac76]

So, the line-up for this will (or should) obviously be partly determined by our intended line-up for Bayern.

Villa played last night but it was a home game which they won, so we can't place too much on their being more tired than us or demoralised

Nevertheless we need to rotate a bit, so I'm going with:

Raya

White Saliba Kiwior Zin

Partey

Odegaard ESR

Nelson Havertz Martinelli


To put that in context, my second-leg Bayern line-up would probably be:


Raya

White Saliba Gabriel Tomi

Rice

Odegaard Havertz

Saka Trossard Jesus


if Tomi's not fit, then god knows what we do, given how bad Zin is and that Kiwior couldn't cope with it - how did we get into such a mess at LB???


I know he won't change the Villa squad as much as that, but we need to be sensible if we want to beat Bayern and i do believe we should try our hardest to have our best players rested - they can always come on in the Villa game if needed

anyway, 0-3 Watkins hatter

[Letters]

I hope we win tbh.

[Marc Overmars]

Partey looks cooked, I wouldn’t rely on getting much out of him for the remainder of the season.

Don’t think we need to be rotating much for this, maybe one or two changes at best but this is going to be a difficult game that we can’t take any risks with.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Do not want to see rested players tbf.

Villa played on Thursday so really no excuses for lack of performing.

[Mac76]

As I said I'm sure Arteta won't change that much but I would like to see Saka rested at least and ESR has showed he can do a job for us

I forgot Vieira but we could use him too, at least as a sub

[McNamara That Ghost...]

It should be all about our first XI now. We have 7 league games to go.

Seven.

[Mac76]

But those seven are plus at least one CL game and all close together, we have a game every three days, that says we need to manage players' minutes where we can

[HCZ_Reborn]

But those seven are plus at least one CL game and all close together, we have a game every three days, that says we need to manage players' minutes where we can

The smartest approach would be to try and win the game 1st half and then manage it second half. I don’t think we can fuck around by starting Nelson etc on Sunday…plus we’ve had a five day gap between games, so as long as a lot of our players aren’t playing the full 90 minutes should be fine for Munich on Wednesday

City will rest players today I imagine, but that’s because a) they’ve got greater squad depth and b) they are playing Luton

[McNamara That Ghost...]

But those seven are plus at least one CL game and all close together, we have a game every three days, that says we need to manage players' minutes where we can

And this is what you live for as a footballer.

I don't have an issue with bringing players off if the job is already done but resting from the start just gives impetus to the opposition you aren't taking then seriously.

[Marc Overmars]

But those seven are plus at least one CL game and all close together, we have a game every three days, that says we need to manage players' minutes where we can

You rest players for bigger challenges that lie ahead.

We are in the thick of those challenges now, there’s nothing else coming further down the line. Every game we play has enough jeopardy to end our season so tinkering with the team too much makes no sense at this stage.

Successful teams play lots of games, it’s something to embrace. It wasn’t long ago that the final few months of a season consisted of us playing dead rubbers every weekend because we had nothing to play for.