Arsenal Football Formation

Lineup (4-1-2-3)

Could this be our best bet to take advantage of Liverpool's slowish centre backs?

I've included Chamakh ahead of Arshavin for 2 reasons, firstly, because of his height and strength he'll provide an an easy outlet for the team when under intense pressure as without Song the midfield lacks height to compete for aerial balls, Chamakh's abilty to drop deep and win those battles could be useful.

The second reason is because I can imagine Theo Walcott- playing centrally- could latch onto a lot of Chamakh's knock downs and use his pace to get behind the defence. If the centre backs sit deep to deny Theo that space, well then Van Persie can expect to have more space to operate in. Which can be no bad thing for Arsenal.

Thirdly I think it could perhaps be best to have an impact player such as Arshavin on the bench should we need some extra spark, and I must admit I did have slight reservations as to whether Andrey's workrate would be sufficient to protect the rookie Jenkinson, who's likely to be filling in at centre back.

My major concern is that Andy Carrol will dominate our smaller centre backs in the air, the only possibility I see to counter that would be to play the 6ft 4 Ignasi Miquel at centre back marking Carrol and perhaps move Koscielny into the defensive mid role, but I've opted to stick with Kos & Verm to start as I think their aggression and anticipation will hopefully make up for Carrol's physical advantage and I'd be loath to disrupt a promising partnership unless things were obviously going badly.