Arsenal will welcome Leicester City to the Emirates this evening, in an encounter which is usually a fiery one.
Our side has actually lost three of the last six encounters with the Foxes, with Jamie Vardy enjoying his best performances against us in recent years.
The striker already has five Premier League goals this season, with a hat-trick coming away to Manchester City, backing up his reputation of being a big-game player.
This Arsenal team is not like those of recent years however, with Mikel Arteta bringing a much more hard-working ethos to the playing squad, and the manager has a win and a draw against Brendan Rodgers since his appointment as head coach back in December.
Arsenal have won seven of our nine competitive fixtures so far this term, with Premier League losses to Manchester City and Liverpool the only blemishes on our perfect record, and will be confident of building that against today’s tough rivals.
Leicester come into the tie on the same points as us however, albeit on the back of two consecutive home losses to West Ham and Aston Villa, but they did get a slight boost on Thursday night when beating Zorya 3-0 in the Europa League.
Despite both teams winning in Europe, the Premier League form is the one which should hold the most weight, and Arteta has already shown the ability to deal with the tactics of Rodgers.
I’m hoping Aubameyang’s goal in midweek will be the end of his mini-drought, and he can get back to his red-hot form of last season, while the team should be able to win regardless of him finding those goalscoring boots.
I’m not going to disrespect Leicester by claiming the match will be a walkover, but I’m sure we will be able to secure the three points. I’ll go for a 2-1 win, with Lacazette and Aubameyang getting our goals.
What are your predictions for today’s game? Do Leicester deserve to be considered as a big team nowadays?
Patrick
Win would shoot us 2 points behind league leaders despite us losing against Pool and City away..
Am sing 3-1
Some of the players who played on Thursday at Rapid will need to play again today and those players will feel the phsical strain, esp later in the game.
Leicester did not play midweek so will have an advantage in that area. I predict a close and tight game but tip us to win 2-1 or by 1 goal at most, whatever the actual score.
Partey being in now has significantly changed the whole balance in our favour and I further predict that before long fans will be calling for him to be our captain. It will happen IMO but not this season.
I again predict that until MA HAS WON THE FABLED QUADRUPLE -AND BY NEXT YEAR AT THE LATEST – THE UNTHINKING ONES ON HERE WILL STILL BE WANTING HIS HEAD OR AT LEAST NOT SUPPORTING HIM. THOSE ARE ALSO, IN THE MAIN, THE ONES WHO WANT OZIL IN THE TEAM. So , no wonder I comment on the lack of thinking by a small minority of fans on here.
As the true saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see!
I think you will find that Leicester did play on Thursday!
Lichester did not play midweek 🙊
They played in the Europa
Leave the ignorant yet arrogant one always rambling about his inexistent intelligence.
Such obvious jealousy How sad to see it!
JUST GOING BY THE LINE UP, IT LOOKS LIKE 4-3-3!!
Hurrah! And guess who’s back? Dani’s back 🙂 COYG
Yes it seems 4-3-3
If it is then that would be amazing…
👍
I think Ceballos would play as CAM behind Lacazette and we’d use 4-2-3-1 when having the ball. If we are defending, it’d likely be 3-4-3 with Partey as the right CB
That could be too complicated….
And No need to mobilise midfielder who can boss it..
I like the formation Arteta has gone with. We might be seeing it more often.
Aubameyang, Lacazette, Saka,
Xhaka, Partey, Ceballos,
Tierney, Gabriel, Luiz, Bellerin,
Leno.
4-3-3. Ceballos should have the free role to roam about, expecting a good game from him.
Only suspect players there are Lacazette, Xhaka, Luiz, Bellerin and Leno.
@jonfox and gotanidea
You keep rambling on about the Ozil fans hating MA or Arsenal and that is really getting annoying.
Get a dose of reality. The fact is as anyone who watched todays game can see the group is going backwards somehow. MA has his lunch eaten by Rodgers and the simple player positioning is so wrong that my grandmother figured it out.
Your attacking mid (cebalos) has spent half the match retrieving balls behind Partey and Xhaka should never be on the field when Partey is on.
It is counterproductive to have both function at the same role. In its worst days Wenger had more flair and creativity in any team and I hated the fact Wenger did not adapt. But MA has not learned anything from Pep except to be afraid to loose.
Does anyone really enjoy this fiasco? Arsenal is the only club that buy a 72 mm winger and he hardly plays (Pepe) and spent an obsene amount of weekly payroll to players that contribute zero ( Willian/Kolasinac/Soares/ etc) as well as buy a talented CB that everyone is waiting to see gain experience and be the future only to bury him on the bench or be a training player (Saliba)
Yet even Leicester come in and show us what good management is because the 2 palyers they brought in (Fofana-Under) get them 3 points today.
We could not get a win or at least a draw against a half speed City and can’t play with Leicester when 4 of their best players are injured.
Seriously? Let’s just hide our head in the sand .