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Football London
Football London
Sport
Chris Wheatley

David Luiz returns, Alex Runarsson in goal & Reiss Nelson to start - Arsenal predicted XI vs Molde

Arsenal continue their Europa League campaign with a group stage match against Norwegian side Molde on Thursday night.

The Gunners' win against Dundalk last week was their 25th in the Europa League, group stage to final, the most in the competition by an English club and two more than north London rivals Tottenham.

Mikel Arteta's side have won their opening two group stage fixtures against Rapid Vienna and Dundalk, although the Spaniard believes the match at Emirates Stadium will be the 'most difficult' his team have played in the competition so far.

"Their strengths are that they work really well as a team. They are a really strong, physical team," said Arteta.

"They are really well organised. I would say defensively, they are really hard to beat when they get in this middle-low block.

"They have some creative players who are dangerous in the final third and they're a real threat on set-pieces as well. The table now is really tight, we've both won both games so it will probably the most difficult game that we've played so far in the competition."

David Luiz is likely to return in defence after recovering from a thigh injury, while Icelandic goalkeeper Alex Runarsson looks set to make his second consecutive Arsenal appearance following his clean-sheet against Dundalk.

Cedric Soares, Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac are expected to make up the rest of the defence while Dani Ceballos, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Joe Willock could make up the midfield.

In attack, it's expected that Reiss Nelson will play alongside Eddie Nketiah and Ivorian winger Nicolas Pepe, both of whom scored in the previous match against Dundalk.

Predicted XI: Runarsson, Cedric, Luiz, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Willock, Ceballos, Maitland-Niles, Nelson, Pepe, Nketiah.

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