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Saints V Arsenal The Preview

Claude Puel will once again rotate his team as it takes on the Gunners, but this time Saints fans will forgive him after the result on Wednesday at Liverpool.

Claude Puel will have no choice but to rotate his team with a mini injury crisis on his hands after the win up at Anfield.

Virgil Van Dijk will be missing and he will be joined on the injury list by James Ward Prowse and Jay Rodriguez who both picked up minor ankle injuries at Liverpool, Puel expects Ward Prowse to be fit for Tuesday's visit to Swansea with J Rod back for West Ham next weekend.

That leaves Saints very short especially in the centre of defence where both Yoshida and Jack Stephens were superb, but the manager has no real alternatives in the Premier League.

That means that one of them will probably miss out today, favourite to come in will be Florin Gardos who has not made a first team appearance in nearly two years due to a combination of firstly falling out of favour with Ronald Koeman and then injury.

He is now in his longest spell of fitness since the summer of 2015 and after run outs in the U23 side could start against the Gunners, with Saints desperately trying to make at least one central defensive signing before the window closes he will also hope that Gardos becomes a viable option in the next few weeks.

Certainly he could be, although not entirely convincing two years ago under Koeman, the stats say otherwise and he had a great record in terms of results in the games he played in which perhaps suggests that he is better than some would have you believe.

Whilst no one begrudges Puel's tinkering this weekend given the circumstances, the fact is we do want to have a run in this competition and that means putting out a side that can compete as it did up at the Emirates in the League cup.

Puel can still do that but it will mean keeping a strong side at the back and that will be difficult to balance.

Under normal circumstance Puel might be tempted to give Harry Lewis another run out in goal, but with such a under strength back four I think he needs to keep Fraser Forster in goal to keep the experience, although Arsenal will themselves play their kids, they are not Norwich City and it should be remembered that the crowd want to see the team compete and go through.

In the defence I would expect Sam McQueen to start and normally Puel would also put in Cuco Martina at right back, but given the crisis in the centre I would hope that he would err on the side of caution here.

Personally I would like to see him keep the back four intact other than McQueen in for Bertrand.

Then a strong centre of midfield, Romeu, Clasie and Reed or Hojbjerg would be my choice, then I would look to have Sims, Long and Redmond up front.

The key to success up front is continuity and Redmond had a great game up at Liverpool and in recent games has been as good as anyone, this is a good chance for him to keep that form going and get some of the crowd off of his back.

Shane Long has scored two goals in the last three games plus being brought down for the penalty against Leicester, strikers thrive on goals and we need him to get a run going.

The euphoria of Wednesday should not mean we take our eye off the ball in this one, the league has been a bit disappointing so far this season, but the cups offer us respite and the FA Cup is another competition we could do well in this season, knock out one of the favourites and we take a major step forward.

Today will be a day of celebration after Wednesday, it is going to be a whirlwind few weeks in the run up to Wembley, but we do need to keep our eye on the ball and realise that we have to keep our focus.

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