Everton v Arsenal Preview, Line-up and Score Prediction

Arsenal make the trip to Goodison Park today to take on Everton in the Premier League, and there could not be a better time for such a game.

The Merseyside Blue are known for being hard to beat, but are not in a rich vein of form at present with only one win from their last 11 matches in all competitions. Saying that, their home form in the league remains strong, and they have not lost in the league at Goodison since we travelled there back in March.

Arsenal on the flip-side are breezing into the title race with a long string of good results, and have climbed to second in the table having only lost one league cup encounter since their opening weekend defeat to Liverpool.

We of course have a number of players sidelined at present, with it being December, with the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Santi Cazorla and Shkodran Mustafi all adding to our woes recently.

Predicted XI:

Cech
Bellerin  Holding  Koscielny  Monreal
Coquelin  Xhaka
Walcott         Ozil         Iwobi
Alexis

On current form we are way out ahead of our rivals but this encounter should not be as easy as it looks. Despite our opponents struggles, they remain unbeaten in the league at home this term, with only the solitary League Cup defeat at Goodison Park under Ronaldo Koeman. I still expect our high-flying side to pick up the three points, but a walkover is not in my mind.

I predict our free-flowing side to get the better of Everton today, but not by a huge margin. If we can get ahead before the break, we may be able to build on that and come away with a 3-1 win or so, but I think the Blues will hold out until half-time. I believe Koeman will attempt to keep it tight against us, but they wont have enough to keep us out the entire match and we should be able to come away with a 1-0 or 2-0 win come full-time.

Pat J