Brilliant opening post. Excellent meal choice too.

This bodes well

Agreed, that is a good meal choice. The McNuggets 20 box: Meal of champions!

We have really struggled against pressing teams this season and I don't foresee this fixture being any different on the back of an international break.

A draw will do.

Maybe against Bayern or Madrid a draw would do. I'd certainly be disappointed in dropping points at home to Liverpool though.

I'm okay with a draw, the meal would more than make it up for it.

This game could be more important than a mere league game.

Beat them and if/when we face them in the Cup final it would give us a massive psychological advantage.

With gabby and Kos we are better equipped to deal with their pace

Mertesacker won't be dropped for this game.

He has got a whole week off, enough time to recharge his batteries.

It's an early kick off. Meh.

Can't start Mertesacker or Chambers here - they'll get fucking skinned.

Gabriel looked sharp and a far better fit to match Sterling / Sturridge / Coutinho.

Alfonso wrote:

Mertesacker won't be dropped for this game.

He has got a whole week off, enough time to recharge his batteries.

He might based on him getting totally rinsed for pace by liverpool's forward line.

We'll need Ramsey deep alongside Coquelin for this game too. No Cazorla deep please.

Is Tet back for this?

Arteta, Wilshere, and Debuchy, are "a few weeks away" iirc.

Looking forward to Debuchy's return

Arteta was in the training pics from yesterday, but starting him here seems a tough spot for a comeback game.

pools balloon needs to be deflated. lets put them in their place like we usually do at home. beat them and i cant see them overtaking us again this season

Huge game for us, if we beat them we could put them almost out of reach from catching us. That would be a huge psychological blow to them but a massive boost for us. This game will be incredibly hard though, their quick and hard pressing style is something we struggle with badly. Last time having two AMs either side of our DM caused us all sort of issues.

Pretty amazing how their 3-4-3 works for them. I don't even know which other team in europe plays with this formation.

I remember they played 352 against us last season at the emirates and we dominated them from start to finish. The way we play between the lines tend to prosper against 3 defenders at the back. But now that have Coutinho and Lallana as AMs to support Sterling/Sturridge, it's a totally different game.