Arsenal team news, preview and prediction for Swansea

This game coming so soon could be a blessing in disguise for Arsenal. We need an immediate response to that shambolic display at Stamford Bridge on Saturday and Swansea aren’t much of threat this season, especially away from home.

Arsenal need to approach this game with caution but not so much caution that we see a static display like against Man Utd again. We need good intelligent movement up front and quick incisive passing in midfield. We need to keep a decent shape so we can actually recover when we lose the ball. Finally, we will need to see better positional play from our wide players and our central midfielders.

Swansea will most likely press us and try and nick an early goal knowing that we will be mentally fragile from the defeat on Saturday. They might have also watched the games by City, Liverpool and Chelsea and hope to replicate something similar. I wouldn’t be too worried if they do as this game is at home and we are a far better team than Swansea.

Line up:
Szczesny
Sagna – Mertesacker – Vermaelen – Gibbs
Arteta – Flamini
Oxlade-Chamberlain – Rosicky – Cazorla
Giroud

This team is really weak in my opinion and it looks a shadow of our best team (which would contain Koscielny, Ramsey, Özil, Walcott and maybe Wilshere). What’s even worse is that this will be the team we play against City.
Vermaelen will need to integrate quickly into the team and he shouldn’t really struggle against this Swansea side.
I want the Arteta – Flamini central midfield partnership reinstated as I think we had made a breakthrough at home with that partnership. Flamini sits deeper whilst Arteta presses high up and plays more forward passes.
Oxlade-Chamberlain will need to sort his form out as he was diabolical vs Chelsea and Tottenham. Same goes for Giroud.

We need a response and regardless of the injuries, we have too much for Swansea. 2-0 to Arsenal.