It’s agony for Cech as Ospina gets nod
ARSENE WENGER will take a huge gamble by playing his second- choice goalkeeper David Ospina in today’s FA Cup final against Chelsea.
In a shock decision, first revealed by MailOnline, the Colombia international will play at Wembley instead of first-choice Petr Cech, who trained as normal yesterday.
The decision comes as even more of a surprise after it emerged last night that defender Shkodran Mustafi was losing his battle to be available for the clash. Arsenal were already without suspended centre half Laurent Koscielny and the injured Gabriel.
Cech’s experience could have been crucial but, barring any lastminute change of heart or injury, Wenger will keep his promise to Ospina after making him his ‘Cup keeper’ for the season.
Ospina has made 13 appearances and all but two in the Champions League or FA Cup.
Cech started the quarter-final and semi-final when Ospina was injured and was expected to play against his former club today, given the importance of the game.
But instead Ospina will play his final game before he joins Turkish club Fenerbahce for £5million.
Despite training yesterday, Mustafi looks almost certain to miss out as he continues to recover from concussion suffered against Sunderland on May 16.
It is understood the Gunners have tried to seek clearance for Mustafi to play today following his return to training. However, medical protocol around head injuries is likely to see the Germany defender sit it out.
That means Per Mertesacker is poised to start his first game of the season. The German club captain has played just 37 minutes of football.
If Wenger continues with a back three, Mertesacker will play alongside rookie Rob Holding and Nacho Monreal — who is a left back by trade. Kieran Gibbs and Alex Oxlade- Chamberlain are fighting to fill Monreal’s usual slot at left wing-back.
Wenger, meanwhile, has described the years following the move to the Emirates Stadium as the ‘most difficult period of my life’.
Arsenal left Highbury to move in to the newly-built Emirates for the 2006-07 season.
But the costs associated with building the Emirates meant the Gunners operated under serious financial constraints and they were went without a major trophy in their new home until the 2014 FA Cup.
Speaking in an interview with BT Sport, Wenger reflected on a testing time as Arsenal boss.
‘In 2006 the most difficult period of my life started because we had restricted finances and we had to pay back a huge amount of money,’ he said. ‘We had to sell our best players and we had to stay at the top and we had to stay in the Champions League.
‘There are many debates when you build a stadium about how big can it be. It’s quite simple at the time — it was £4000 a seat and you multiply that by 60,000 it’s £240m. Plus all the businesses we had to buy out, so we went for over £420m.’