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Preview: Arsenal v Man City, Team News, Line-Up & Prediction

By on December 21, 2015

emirates-stadium

Arsenal will look to make a real statement of intent in this seasons title race when we take on Manchester City at the Emirates this evening.

We head into the game sitting second in the Premier League table but with Leicester City now five points clear following Saturday’s win at Everton, we need to cut the gap with victory tonight.

We also need to show that we mean business and are genuine title challengers. The title race is wide open this season and we’d put ourselves in an excellent position if we could beat arguably our closest rival. [Sorry Leicester, but I don’t think you’ll last the pace].

City are just a point behind us so defeat would see them leapfrog us into second, so Arsene Wenger will no doubt be desperate to maintain the momentum with a third straight league win tonight.

Team News

Sanchez returned to training last week after recovering from a hamstring injury and he’s set to be named in the squad at the very least – although I personally think the boss won’t be able to resist starting him in a game of this magnitude.

Arteta could also return to the squad but I don’t think we’ll see him named in the first eleven as Flamini is expected to keep his place alongside Ramsey.

We have no fresh injury worries but Welbeck, Wilshere, Rosicky, Coquelin and Cazorla are all still unavailable for selection.

As for City, they welcome back Aguero but Kompany, Zabaleta, Fernando and Nasri are all out.

Line-Up

If Sanchez is deemed fit to start, then the line-up pretty-much picks itself. If Arsene decides not to risk the Chilean from the off, then Campbell or Oxlade-Chamberlain will start in attack.

This would be my line-up:

Prediction

Obviously City are a strong side and with the exception of Kompany and perhaps Zabaleta, they’re going to field their strongest side tonight. However, we’ve proven in the past we can beat them and I think we’ve got a great chance to do it again on home soil. Without Kompany they’ve looked extremely vulnerable at the back and I fancy us to score two tonight. The key will be keeping Aguero quiet.

Arsenal 2-1 Man City

COYG!!!