New signing Fabio Borini is in line for his debut, possibly partnering fit-again striker Steven Fletcher, who has not started a game since March.
New Arsenal signing Mesut Ozil missed Friday training, but may still replace the injured Tomas Rosicky.
Per Mertesacker misses out with illness, and Yaya Sanogo is not fit.
Arsenal's annual early season crisis has been put to bed with a couple of consecutive league victories and the landmark signing of Mesut Özil from Real Madrid. Arsène Wenger's team are now sitting comfortably near the top of the table, and have a great chance to make it three-in-a-row against struggling Sunderland on Saturday.
It’s been a long gruelling two weeks but football is finally back and Sunderland away is definitely an interesting tie. Although we have the addition of our little German Mesut Özil to look forward to, hopefully, this is not what makes the tie interesting for me. It’s interesting as Sunderland are under the new management of Di Canio and it will be very intriguing to see how he approaches the game tomorrow. Does he defend and let us dictate the game and try and hit us on the counter? Does he use physicality to try and get Sunderland something from the game?
Sunderland’s ground isn’t the best and with the weather pretty poor at the moment, it will be difficult for us to pass Sunderland off the pitch. We will need to adopt a more similar approach to how we defeated Fulham a few weeks ago. Quick counter attacks and clinical finishing is what’s going to get us the 3 points.
Sunderland: Vito Mannone; Jack Colback, Carlos Cuéllar, Modibo Diakité, Ondřej Čelůstka; Emanuele Giaccherini, Sebastian Larsson, Cabral, Adam Johnson; Ji Dong-Won; Steven Fletcher
Arsenal: Wojciech Szczęsny; Kieran Gibbs, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Bakary Sagna; Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere; Santi Cazorla, Mesut Özil, Theo Walcott; Olivier Giroud
Match Date/Time: Saturday, 3 p.m. local, 10 a.m. ET
Venue: Stadium of Light, Sunderland, England
