Dugout Discussion

Lacazette, Luiz, Ceballos and Pepe on the bench for Arsenal

There are two Premier League matches kicking off at 14:00 BST today.

Arsenal head north to take on Newcastle United at St. James’ Park, while Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers meet at the King Power Stadium.

The headline team news from Tyneside is that Alexandre Lacazette (£9.5m) – who had been a doubt for this game with an ankle knock – is only a substitute, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.0m) leading the line for the Gunners.

David Luiz (£6.0m), Nicolas Pepe (£9.5m) and Dani Ceballos (£5.5m) also have to make do with a place on the bench.

Youngsters Reiss Nelson (£5.5m) and Joe Willock (£5.0m) start behind Aubameyang.

Joelinton (£6.0m) makes his competitive Newcastle debut and will be joined by an out-of-position Miguel Almiron (£6.0m) in attack, with Steve Bruce keeping faith with the wing-back system that Rafael Benitez favoured in 2018/19.

Matt Ritchie (£5.5m) has recovered from injury and will line up on the left flank.

There are no major shocks at Leicester, with Ayoze Perez (£6.5m) making Brendan Rodgers’ starting XI as expected.

Perez joins Jamie Vardy (£9.0m) and James Maddison (£7.0m) in the Foxes’ line-up but Marc Albrighton (£5.5m) drops to the bench as Wilfred Ndidi (£5.0m) is brought in to bolster central midfield.

Wolves are at full strength, with Raul Jimenez (£7.5m) and Diogo Jota (£6.5m) again paired together in a two-pronged attack.

Jimenez and Matt Doherty (£6.0m) both returned from injury lay-offs in the Europa League on Thursday night and the Irish wing-back also makes Nuno Espirito Santo’s first starting XI of the 2019/20 campaign.

Newcastle United XI: Dubravka, Schär, Lascelles, Dummett, Manquillo, Shelvey, Hayden, Longstaff, Ritchie, Almirón, Joelinton.

Arsenal XI: Leno, Maitland-Niles, Chambers, Sokratis, Monreal, Guendouzi, Xhaka, Mkhitaryan, Willock, Nelson, Aubameyang.

Leicester City XI: Schmeichel, Ricardo, Söyüncü, Evans, Chilwell, Ndidi, Choudhury, Tielemans, Maddison, Pérez, Vardy.

Wolves XI: Patricio, Coady, Bennett, Boly, Doherty, Dendoncker, Moutinho, Neves, Jonny, Jota, Jimenez.

Lessons learned from Gameweek 1

1,758 Comments Post a Comment
  1. jimmy12
    • 9 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    VAR is ruining the game

    1. Podge
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Fixing

      1. Four Hit Wonder
        • 6 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        Ruining.

        1. Podge
          • 13 Years
          4 years, 7 months ago

          Applying the rules ruins the game ?

      2. Gerd Mueller’s thighs
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 10 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        0/

    2. Meinhoff
      • 11 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Spoken like a true Dendonck owner

    3. Scholes Out For Summer
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      yes, sod the machine that is actually enforcing the rules....

    4. Pumpkinhead - I'm ITK …
      • 14 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Making it legit and fair. .what's wrong with that.

    5. IRBOX ⚽
      • 7 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Implementing the rules correctly? Just means you need to not prematurely celebrate points

    6. Ozzy smith
      • 9 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Agreed. At least it's exposing certain laws of the game that need addressing, handball and offside.

  2. IRBOX ⚽
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    VAR destroying jammy bench point dreams since 2019

  3. Ógie
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    God bless you VAR 🙂

    1. Point-one short
      • 7 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Here here

  4. tiger
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Good work VAR, now your turn VARdy

    1. Monklane
      • 14 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      I see what you did there

  5. Samwise the Brave
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    How is that a handball, he heads it at him from like 10cm away

    1. Reiger
      • 8 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Yep. It’s utter nonsense

      1. Scholes Out For Summer
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 10 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        Its literally the rules of the game

    2. Scholes Out For Summer
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      ANY handball in the leadup to a goal will result in the goal being disallowed

    3. Guy Demel
      • 11 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Handball used to have to be deliberate

      1. Scholes Out For Summer
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 10 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        they changed the rules...

  6. Business Cat
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 9 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    (screws lid back onto jam jar)

    1. Piggs Boson
      • 12 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      🙂

    2. Jafooli
      • 12 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      😀

  7. Ozzy smith
    • 9 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    What an absolute farce the handball rule is atm. They need to get a grip of it asap, along with offside.

    1. Four Hit Wonder
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Yesterday a clear handball by AVL wasn't a penalty. I don't get it.

      1. Point-one short
        • 7 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        That was a bad call

    2. Werkself
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Spot on. That's the problem, not VAR.

      1. Ozzy smith
        • 9 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        Exactly. The only downside to VAR is the experience for fans at the game, with late goals etc. At least it's exposing ridiculous aspects of the game.

  8. Chandler Bing
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Emery is so clueless

  9. Differentiator
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Think it would've been a Boly assist

  10. La Roja
    • 12 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Ffs Jota!

  11. Saxe-Gotha
    • 9 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Dendoncker, or not. I think that was harsh.

  12. schlupptheweek
    • 9 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Regulations suck!

  13. robt
    • 5 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Dendoncker and Kelly on bench FFS.

    1. BattleOfDeBruyne
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      That's what you get for playing the template.

      1. robt
        • 5 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        Far from it

  14. adibo
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Jotaa is killing me sh!t

  15. Merlin the Wraith
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Feck VAR!!!!!!!!!

  16. Cok3y5murf
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    God, Jota is awful

  17. *sigh*
    • 12 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    On Willems watch

  18. Gerd Mueller’s thighs
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 10 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    I love VAR.....so many questionable goals and especially PKs in the past few years.

    1. Four Hit Wonder
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Oh did that change now?

  19. Arse Craic
    • 14 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    So close, yet so VAR

  20. Jafooli
    • 12 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    No two posters spelt Dondonkers name the same on the previous page 😀

    #getitright #fplspellingbee

    1. GOTHAM City F.C.
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 7 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Took a season to get jeminez right

  21. BattleOfDeBruyne
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Who's playing ST for Chelsea?

    1. Dannyb
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Well we will all know in 15 mins.....

      1. BattleOfDeBruyne
        • 4 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        Did I ask for a sarcastic reply? No, I asked who's playing ST for Chelsea.

        If you don't have an opinion then why reply.

        1. Grand Thibauto
          • 9 Years
          4 years, 7 months ago

          Lol @battleofdebruyne

        2. Pigeon
          • 7 Years
          4 years, 7 months ago

          Don't ask stupid questions then

        3. xuwei
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 11 Years
          4 years, 7 months ago

          Opinion?

  22. Debauchy
    • 11 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Wow Jota , terrible finish 1 on 1

  23. Freshy
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    4 years, 7 months ago

    Jota working on a hattie of misses

  24. Party time
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Benteke is wearing Jota's face mask

    • SPorting
      • 12 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Just give VAR some AI and we can all go home.

    • BobbyDoesNotLook
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Autosub for Bilva is Dendo. Almost cured my hangover until the goal was disallowed.

    • Abusive_Sgt_Daelrhos
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Jota is a goddamn clown

    • skeptical
      • 11 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Seems overly harsh to me. Going to be a theme of the season I think. I'm unsure how that was goal was disallowed but the pen for Spurs not given. Boly's arms were down by his side and that happened so fast...

    • Smurf
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Hated VAR yesterday. Loving it today.

      1. Four Hit Wonder
        • 6 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        So basically you only like the ruling when it suits you?

        Brilliant.

    • The Overthinker
      • 7 Years
      4 years, 7 months ago

      Only if Aubameyang was a better finisher like Kane

      1. dark91
        • 8 Years
        4 years, 7 months ago

        This can be said about 90% of the strikers. Deadly finishers are rare nowadays