Jjkmiles says:

Perfect lineup but must not wait till 70 minutes to make substitutions

Long Island Gunner says:

Goon Boy – agreed that such a starting 11 is the default answer. I will be curious to see if Wenger starts of that way right out of the blocks or “eases in” the new signings.

In addition, there will be several “keys” this season that will affect our ability to fight for titles immediately. While I defer judgement in total to Wenger and his staff, one of the aspects we have all suffered through over the past 6 years – coinciding with our lack of silverware – is that Sir Wenger has allowed one poor performance after the next to go on over weeks and months without any consequences for the player(s) in question.

There is a huge difference between “keeping a player’s confidence up” by not benching him after a one-off howler and allowing a sense of complacency about performing at middling levels to take hold of a side.

With that as my background, – and to your point of starting 11 – I think Theo gets 1 or 2 games to start to fulfill his “promise” and not miss one sitter after the next, not disappear when the service becomes less than ideal and not evaporate when the defending scheme is difficult to deal with.

As for the sub-par performances one need only look at Rambo who has been – frankly – well off the pace of the top tier of EPL standards. Same for Djourou, same for Gibbs (hence the signings I suspect).

If Wenger has truly returned to his more “merits” based approach to playing time (from his earlier days at the club) and put aside – somewhat – his “they need to be protected” approach, I see Park and Miyachi – as well as Benayoun – getting gobs of time immediately after any below par performance by anyone but RVP. I really don’t know about the man-management issues that will arise for Rambo, Arshavin, Rosicky, Djourou, Gibbs and Chamakh (who looks like all of his confidence has just bled out of his body), but so be it! That’s how champions are forged.

One of the great aspects of this team on the defensive side that I see – is that I rate Koscelny more than most on this site and he can play Centre Half on the left or the right and would complement Mertesaker almost as well as our “vice captain” – Tommy V. With that aspect in place Vermaelen can also play the left back slot should we need some strong defending out there from time to time (Real Madrid & Ronaldo anyone?).

My 2 cents.

GunnerEye says:

Park Just score 3 goal in his national team korea !