Arsenal vs Southampton Preview, Team News, Likely XI’s, Prediction & Betting Tips

Arsenal will be hoping to make it back-to-back victories when we take on high-flying Southampton at the Emirates tonight.

After successive losses to Man Utd and Swansea, we got back on track with a 2-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund last week before grinding out a hard fought 1-0 win over West Brom on Saturday afternoon.

Our inconsistent early season form means we’re still languishing down in seventh place in the Premier League table going into tonight’s fixtures, but we can reclaim sixth with a win and move to within two points of fourth placed Manchester United.

Southampton have surprised most people this season with Ronald Koeman rebuilding an exciting side at St Mary’s after losing the majority of their key men over the summer, and they come into the game sitting six points clear of us in third place.

However, the Saints slumped to a 3-0 loss at home to Manchester City on Sunday and they haven’t won in the league away to Arsenal in their last 19 visits, so we should be confident of picking up a vital win tonight.

Team News

Arsene Wenger will hand late fitness tests to Kieran Gibbs and Nacho Monreal after the pair picked up knocks at the Hawthorns on Saturday. Monreal took part in training yesterday so looks favourite to be passed fit to start at left-back.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is also a doubt with an ankle injury that he suffered against WBA so Wenger may stick with the same front three of Danny Welbeck, Alexis Sanchez and Olivier Giroud.

Jack Wilshere is out after undergoing ankle surgery and he’s joined on the sidelines by Mikel Arteta, with the Spaniard out with a calf injury.

Wojciech Szczesny remains sidelined with a hip complaint so with David Ospina still a further week away from a return, Emiliano Martinez will start in goal.

Mathieu Debuchy is due back next week but for now he joins Theo Walcott, Mesut Ozil, Abou Diaby and Serge Gnabry in missing the game.

Southampton will be without influential midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin after he was forced off against City with a thigh injury, but Jack Cork is available again after recovering from illness.

James Ward-Prowse remains out while striker Jay Rodriguez is still two weeks away from returning to action.

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Likely Line-Ups

Predicted Score

Arsenal 2-1 Southampton: We’ve been hugely inconsistent this season and our home form has been poor, but we’ve looked much better over the past two games and we look more balanced between attack and defence. As impressive as Southampton have been, they’ve struggled against the top sides having lost to City, Liverpool and Spurs, while Schneiderlin will be a huge miss for them, so I can see us edging this one tonight.

Betting Tips

Arsenal are the 5/6 favourites with Betfair to win the game but we can offer enhanced odds of 5/1 on a home victory tonight! New customer can also claim up to £100 worth of FREE bets. If you fancy predicting the exact score my 2-1 tip is on offer at 9/1 and I also fancy Giroud to open the scoring at 6/1. If we combine these bets in a scorecast then we get very tempting odds of 49/1. Surely that’s got to be worth a couple of quid!?

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What team would you like to see start and whats your predicted score for the game?