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PREVIEW: Arsenal vs Anderlecht, Team News, Starting XI & Prediction

By on November 4, 2014

arsenal champions league

Arsenal will look to book their place in the knockout stages of the Champions League when we take on Anderlecht at the Emirates tonight.

A last gasp 2-1 win in Belgium two weeks ago means we are now five points clear in second-place in Group D so victory this evening coupled with Dortmund getting a positive result against Galatasaray will mean we’re safely through to the next phase with two games to spare.

We were extremely lucky last time out as Anderlecht were the better side in the second half and deserved something from the game, but late goals from Gibbs and Podolski saved us so lets hope we put in a better performance tonight.

The display against Burnley was encouraging – particularly during the final 30 minutes – and another performance like that tonight should be enough to see-off Anderlecht.

Team News

The big news is that Jack Wilshere won’t feature tonight after picking up a sickness bug but he should be back to face Swansea on Sunday.

Theo Walcott is pushing for a start after coming off the bench at the weekend but I think it’s still too soon and would give him another second half run-out tonight.

Lukas Podolski is back in contention after an impressive cameo against Burnley and I’d like to see him given a rare start in place of Santi Cazorla.

Aaron Ramsey has fully recovered from a bug that he had last week and I’d expected him to start alongside Mikel Arteta in midfield.

Mesut Ozil, Laurent Koscielny, Mathieu Debuchy and Olivier Giroud remain out but I’d like to see Hector Bellerin given another chance to impress at right-back with Calum Chambers moving into the middle of defence.

Preferred XI

Prediction

It’s all about us applying ourselves. We have far better players than Anderlecht but we have to match their effort and energy levels. If we go into the game thinking it’s already won like we did two weeks ago then it could be a long evening as the visitors do have a couple of dangerous players. But we look like we’re steadily improving game-by-game and I’m going to back the boys to get a relatively comfortable win tonight. Arsenal 3-0 Anderlecht.

COYG!!!

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