So Arsenal get to open the Premier League season on Friday night with a home game against Leicester City, and with the Gunners bringing in Alexandre Lacazette and Saed Kolasinc it is little surprise that we are the hot favourites against a team that was mostly disappointing last season while reigning title holders.
Currently Arsenal are 1/2 favourites with Coral, which could be very good value if Arsenal click at the first time of asking. Even better value is the 25/1 on an Arsenal win for new customers at Coral, so it should be worth checking out before the game. The price of 5/1 for Leicester to win is probably about right, but as Arsenal have been used to having a poor opening game for many seasons the 10/3 for the draw is likely to be popular with neutrals.
But we had an excellent game against Chelsea last week in the Community Shield, and despite being outsiders we still managed to come away with the trophy. This should give us a great confidence boost and definitely an extra edge in match fitness over our opponents.
With that in mind I think this makes it make it more likely that we come away with the three points and despite expecting Leicester to play a defensive game I still think we can score lots of goals. The Leicester captain Wes Morgan gave us an idea of what to expect when he said after https://www.lcfc.com/news/446539/morgan-were-readyLeicester’s pre-season win against Mönchengladbach: “It was a tough game and we feel like it’ll be like that against Arsenal – they keep the ball and had a lot of possession and worked the angles.
“They got the first goal so we had to dig deep and had to come back from a goal behind which is never easy, but it’s just good to show character and finish off with a win in pre-season.
“We’re a team that do a lot of defending and like to counter attack, so it’s good to get in your stride and get into the swing of things by knowing your positions, angles and distances.”
So if Leicester start off defensively on Friday I think this will be play into our hands. Wenger has been emphasising the need for a fast start and our boys will be up for attack, attack, attack if the Foxes want to spend most of the time in their own half. I like the odds on Arsenal to score at least twice in the first half at 3/1 from Coral, but my absolute banker bet must be Arsenal to win the match by at least two goals at 27/20.
Get on the Gunners!