Arsenal head into the first leg of their Europa League last-32 tie with BATE Borisov looking to register back-to-back wins for the first time since the start of 2019.
The Gunners have suffered three defeats in their last half-a-dozen outings, although Unai Emery’s side did register a 2-1 victory away at Huddersfield Town on Saturday afternoon.
Arsenal reached this stage of the competition by recording 16 points from their six group games, as well as keeping five clean sheets.Emery has a number of selection dilemmas ahead of Thursday’s match, and here we look at how the North London outfit could line up against the Belarusian champions.
Out: Hector Bellerin (knee), Rob Holding (knee), Danny Welbeck (ankle), Sokratis Papastathopoulos(ankle)
Doubtful: Granit Xhaka (groin), Aaron Ramsey (knee), Mesut Ozil (illness), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang(illness)
Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have both been suffering with illness, but the pair are expected to recover in time to feature against BATE.
Aubameyang is a likely starter with Arsenal not playing at the weekend, while Ozil could also feature from the opening whistle with Denis Suarez lining up alongside him.
The rest of the team could remain the same from the weekend, with Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey unlikely to be risked while they deal with groin and knee problems respectively.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos is unlikely to return until next week’s second leg at the earliest, leaving Shkodran Mustafi, Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal to make up the back three.
Bernd Leno may keep his place in goal ahead of Petr Cech.
