At the weekend they played Diame on the right of midfield and he was a real handful. If we played Deulofeu on the left and he was physically overwhelmed or neglected the defensive side of the game we could be leaving Baines exposed.
Noble, Morrison, Diame, Nolan and Jarvis are going to get stuck in and it will be a physical contest. Can we afford to play two 19 year olds (Barkley and Deulofeu), a hot and cold winger (Mirallas) and two thirty-plus midfielders (Osman and Barry) against them?
Are we really more likely to be the dominant side at their place? They're likely to be in our face and not give us time on the ball. We're going to need to match them first and hope that our extra quality tells in the end.
If defleflu is on his game then Diame needs to go backwards to help his fullback and we've completely negated his attacking threat and created a situation where our most threatening attacking player, Baines, can attack at will as he's got no defending to do.
Noble, Morrison?, Diame and the likes are physical but they're poor footballers compared to ours. Do we try and do them with strength or guile? I'd say we've got enough about us to compete with them physically either way.
We'll dominate the ball as Allardyce will be more than happy to allow us it. They'll only start to bite once we get within 40 yards of their goal. in that tight space we'll need invention over industry to break them down.
We should trust in ourselves and our players and let them worry about us. Not spend our time worrying about them.