After a good start to his Arsenal managerial career, Mikel Arteta will be looking to build on two home wins over Manchester United and Leeds United with a win at Crystal Palace, a win which would be his first on the road from the dug out.
We visit a tricky side in Palace, where the home crowd get behind the time, and with Zaha’s ‘trickery’ (i.e. constant diving) our less clever (i.e. thick) players (i.e. Luiz and Xhaka) need to be very careful in these days where VAR is pretty much ruining what was once our beautiful game.
The team news for us is looking quite positive, with Martinelli back in contention for a starting berth, Bellerin still isn’t ready, so looks like AMN will start the game as our right back. As you know, Calum Chambers and Kieran Tierney are out long term so won’t feature but the restees, such as Leno and Aubameyang should return after being rested against Leeds in the week.
Dani Ceballos is fit and ready to return so will probably remain on the bench leaving a Xhaka and Torreira midfield brick wall, while Ozil and Pepe look like they have done enough in recent weeks to start against Palace.
Palace bought in Cenk Tosun from Everton yesterday who will probably dive straight in to the Palace XI, but they South Londoners do have their own set of problems with their penalty taker Luka Milivojevic suspended and injury worries over Townsend, Schlupp, Ward and van Aanholt.
Palace are a tricky side, but lets hope our recent form can be cemented with a win to put some more pressure on the sides above us in the league, so lets hope for more trouble at the Palace this lunchtime!
Kick off is at 1230 and you can watch the game on BT Sport in the UK along with many, many dodgy internet streams that will no doubt cut out half way through and infect your PC with a virus.
COYG!
