Arsenal emerged successful from a thrilling open night in the Premier League on Friday evening, where the Gunners fought back from behind twice to seal a stunning 4-3 victory over a resilient Leicester City side.
Alexandre Lacazette, Danny Welbeck, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud all showed their worth with decisive goals, with the header from the latter stealing the headlines, but Arsene Wenger will have breathed a sigh of relief after what was far from a comfortable victory.
Arsenal will have seen over the weekend that Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur are all looking good at the start of the new season and the Gunners need to improve if they’re to find themselves in the same bracket.
Fortunately for Arsenal, their struggles on Friday evening defensively come amidst a wealth of absentees as Laurent Koscielny continued to serve a suspension and Shkodran Mustafi lacked fitness after returning late from the Confederations Cup, whilst Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista were unavailable due to injury.
In the absence of their four more senior recognised central defenders, Arsenal struggled to deal with Jamie Vardy’s pace and Mark Albrighton’s ability out wide. Come this weekend against Stoke, the Gunners need to field a much stronger XI.
Paulista and Koscielny will remain unavailable but Mustafi should be able to make his return and we could also see Per Mertesacker available. That pair could slot into the back-three either alongside Nacho Monreal or Rob Holding, allow Sead Kolasinac to move to a wing-back role where he should thrive.
Crucially, that would also allow Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to move across to the right side of defence to replace Hector Bellerin, who was poor and consistently exposed in the victory over Leicester, giving the Gunners a huge boost.
The changes Arsenal need to make aren’t all in the back-line though as there was a very obvious void in the midfield left by the absence of Aaron Ramsey, who came off the bench to net a superb equaliser after linking-up with midfield partner Granit Xhaka. Whilst Mohamed Elneny wasn’t necessarily poor, it’s clear Ramsey is the superior option.
The comes the curious case of Alexis Sanchez, who’ll remain unavailable due to injury. Transfer speculation continues to surround the Chilean and Arsenal were visibly less threatening in attack without their star-man, although Welbeck did find the net.
If Arsenal are to replace Alexis internally, then players like Welbeck need to be more direct when they come into the side to ask more questions of the opposition defenders. More movement from the front trio allows more room for Alexandre Lacazette to run into and Mesut Ozil to feed balls through to, which should significantly improve Arsenal’s attacking prowess.