I am looking forward to tomorrow’s friendly against ‘Indonesia Dream Team’: nothing is a better antidote against the poisonous Torture Window shenanigans than watching a game of football involving our boys. It will only be temporary relief, and as per the nature of early season friendlies, it probably won’t be much of a game to watch, but at least the ball will be rolling again and we can watch eleven Arsenal shirts in action for the first time in two month.

This is the 24-man squad for the Asia Tour (thanks JM for providing the data):

GK: Lukasz Fabianski, Wojciech Szczesny, Damian Martinez

DF: Kieran Gibbs, Carl Jenkinson, Laurent Koscielny, Per Mertesacker, Ignasi Miquel, Bacary Sagna

MF: Mikel Arteta, Ryo, Aaron Ramsey, Tomas Rosicky, Jack Wilshere, Serge Gnabry, Kris Olsson, Thomas Eisfeld, Chuks Aneke, Gedion Zelalem

FW: Olivier Giroud, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lukas Podolski, Theo Walcott, Chuba Akpom

The following players did not travel to Indonesia:

i) Santi Cazorla and Nacho Monreal (extended rest due to their involvement in the Confederations Cup)

ii) Yaya Sanago (still with France at the Under-20 World Cup)

iii) Thomas Vermaelen, Abou Diaby, Emmanuel Frimpong (injured/recovering)

iv) Gervinho (announced as “sickness” … or something more ?…. Linked with Marseille, Roma)

v) Joel Campbell, Wellington Silva (no work permit to play for Arsenal yet?)

vi) Chamakh, Bendtner, Santos, CY Park (on sales)

I have not got a clue which team Arsene will select for tomorrow’s friendly, which will be shown by ESPN at Sunday 2.45 p.m. If I had my way, I would start with a strong team, but give at least some of the youngsters a chance to show us how much further they have developed last season. I would love to see more of Gnabry, Miquel, Eisfeld, Olsson, Aneke, Zelalem and Akpom during this tour.

I don’t think Arsene will add more than two or three top players to the team this summer, and with a number of players who were regarded as surplus to requirement now departed – with more to follow – there is a good opportunity for some of the above mentioned youngsters to play themself into the squad for next season.

Your guess is as good as mine as in who is going to start in tomorrow’s team. This is a time for experimenting and it will be interesting to see how we line up, in terms of formation, and who will start/ play where. No doubt, Arsene will make many substitutions and it will be hard to pull any big conclusions from Sunday’s encounter.

I expect us to be in with the familiar 4-2-1-3 (4-2-3-1) formation and would like Arsene to start with the following players:

How would like Arsenal to line-up for tomorrow’s friendly?

Enjoy the game fine fellow Gooners! 🙂

Written by: TotalArsenal.

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