Arsenal take on Southampton in the Premier League in an 8pm BST kick-off on Friday night at the Emirates. It’s a huge fixture for the Gunners as title rivals Manchester City have a game-in-hand over the current league leaders and are only 4 points back. In reality, Arsenal need to win every match and, at a bare minimum, get a draw against City. Here’s my preview for Friday night’s action.
Arsenal Looking to Rebound from Disappointing Draws
Arsenal took a 2-0 lead against Liverpool and let them back into the match and, in effect, lost 2 points with a 2-2 draw. It was damaging for them in the title race. They then went to West Ham and did exactly the same thing. Two quick goals and people thought perhaps that it could have been a rout of 4 or 5 goals. However, they let the Hammers back in and ended up repeating mistakes as well as missing a penalty.
Arsenal are known to have these weaknesses near the end of the season in strong positions and it’s looking like they’re losing their nerve a bit. This encounter is a really important match for Mikel Arteta’s men. They’ve not lost a match in 8 but those 2 draws mean that they will now need to go on a run of wins and hope that City slip up.
Saints in Last Chance Saloon
Southampton sit bottom of the Premier League bed and have won just 2 matches in their last 8 away from home. With 7 matches to go, they are 4 points away from the relegation zone so although this is a match that they really need a win from, they also have no illusions about the likelihood of that outcome, I’m sure. They still have matches against Bournemouth, Fulham, and Nottingham Forest. They’ll need 9 points from those 3 matches now to stay up in my opinion.
Ruben Selles and his players have a big problem and that is that they’re not scoring goals. They’re conceding too but they’ve scored just 5 away goals in 8 matches, whilst conceding 11. They have to find a way to hit the net and the last match they need right now is an away one to the league leaders, who have Jesus back.
Head-to-Head Meetings and Team News
Arsenal will have Oleksandr Zinchenko back and will likely replace Kieran Tierney at the back. They missed Zincheko against West Ham greatly and he will give Arsenal more width and a better overlap option. Arsenal is without William Saliba, Mohamed Elneny and Takehiro Tomiyasu. Southampton will not have Ainsley Maitland-Niles available of course because Arsenal is the parent club. They also have question marks over Che Adams.
Arsenal won the last match against these two played at home with a 3-0 victory. However, last year Arsenal only took a point from Southampton with a 1-0 defeat and a 1-1 draw. On the whole though at the Emirates, there have been 15 matches and 9 wins for Arsenal, 2 wins for Southampton, and 4 draws.
Arsenal vs Southampton Betting Tips
I think Arsenal win this one. They started strong against Liverpool and West Ham but then fell away and let mistakes sneak into their game. However, at the Emirates and against a team who are not scoring, I think it’s worth going for Arsenal to win (to nil).
Arsenal to win (to nil) vs Southampton 10/11 with Bet365
All odds are accurate at the time of writing.
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