With Champions League qualification nearly secured, Arsenal aim to take another decisive step today as they host Bournemouth at Emirates Stadium, and this is the team that Mikel Arteta has gone with.
The Gunners currently sit second in the Premier League on 67 points, with a comfortable seven-point cushion over sixth-placed Nottingham Forest, the first side outside the Champions League spots. While the title is out of reach, Arsenal’s focus is firmly on sealing their top-four finish and maintaining momentum in the final stretch of the season.
Arsenal come into this fixture unbeaten in their last eight league matches, most recently drawing 2-2 at home against Crystal Palace. Their home record this campaign has been strong, boasting 10 wins, six draws, and just one defeat from 17 matches at the Emirates. Over their last six league games, Arsenal have collected three wins and three draws, underlining their consistency as the season nears its conclusion.
Despite a busy schedule, with a crucial Champions League semi-final second leg approaching, Arsenal will be determined to keep their league form intact. The side has shown attacking quality throughout the campaign, with a total of 63 goals scored and only 29 conceded in 34 matches, reflecting a balanced and effective approach at both ends of the pitch. The Gunners will look to continue this trend against a Bournemouth side that bested them in the reverse fixture earlier this season.
Bournemouth arrive in North London sitting 10th in the table with 50 points from 34 matches. The Cherries are unbeaten in their last four league games, including a 1-1 draw against Manchester United last time out. Away from home, Bournemouth have earned 25 points from 17 matches but are currently on a four-match winless streak on their travels, having not secured an away victory since mid-February.
The previous meeting between these sides saw Bournemouth claim a 2-0 win at Vitality Stadium in October. However, with Arsenal’s strong home form and Champions League qualification within touching distance, the hosts will be eager to ensure a different outcome this weekend.
Dress rehearsal for PSG
COYG!
Odegaard in the side again, how can we fail to win.🤣😂
Timber injured?
Reported rested, he was in training pic.
A totally pathetic meek display again.
After 6 years think Mikel may have taken us as far as he can.
Sideways passing too slow.
Trossard.
Martinelli. Odegaard. Saka.
Rice. Partey.
Skelly. Kiwior. Saliba. White.
Raya.
Hopefully Timber is not injured and he is only being given a full rest.
Arteta did not say anything about him in his prematch press conference. He only talked about Havertz, Jorginho and Calafiori.
After 30 minutes he did well against Kvaratskhelia.
I am not sure White is fit enough yet to stop Kvaratskhelia on Wednesday.
Arteta’s comments on ref inconsistency this season is correct. He said the rules are different for ARSENAL. Next to bottleneck #1 which is players injuries, ref biases come as a #2 challenge that dampened Arsenal’s title charge. Honestly no excuses. I wonder why almost all refs are sourced from northern part & no one from London. Smells suspicious. Fair representation!
Inconsistency not injuries is and has always been what holds us back under Arteta.
The same injuries plagued squad did not have any problem reaching impressively the semi finals of UCL.
My question is still if injuries are the main excuse this season what about the previous 4? Even more so considering this injuries plagued season has been the best under the substandard manager.
When Arteta opens his trap theres always some excuse .
This is why we’ve turned into a meme from opposition fans .
Once a respected club under Wenger now a laughing stock because of him and his cringe backroom staff .
Awake the winning Monster
Bournemouth seriously need the 3 points to get Conference League spot. They want to capitalize on Arsenal’s bifocal focus next PSG match. Evanilson’s red card was rescinded after Man Utd got a numerical advantage to later draw the match. If the red card stood he would not play tonight. More sore for Arsenal if he scores v Arsenal. Such instances are why Arteta rues ref biases against Arsenal.
Tonight’s placard on the stands which reads ‘Believe and take us to Munich’ is interesting. 1 – 0 deficit is too reverseable if we really believe. Dembele’s situation is a touch and go so bonus for us tbh. The return of Partey and its domino effects on other teammates creates new trouble on PSG. I love if all the 3 UEFA competitions are won by teams from EPL as latest definitive testament to the supremacy of the league. I’m not sure if any league did that before. Can you help pls if you’ve the data?
The issue with having a greater than life personality like the great Wenger is it creates worshipper aka lackeys who unfortunately don’t leave when he does.
😂😂😂
Let’s hope when Arteta leaves his weird worshippers follow the clown out the door as well .
The PR team will surely leave as they will have no purpose anymore.
Best thing HH is that I wanted Wenger to go also same as Emery same as this idiot we have in charge now .
Always club before individuals ,what old VAR idiot above didn’t digest is me giving a compliment to our greatest manager and what he did for this club ,lost on him , to busy blaming refs and VAR to have the intelligence to see it ,.
Rice on fire, Raya so dire.
Another goal or two is enough for our confidence.
Another draw here would feel like a lost
With matches against Liverpool and Newcastle coming up, we cannot lose points today. Our opponents are 3-6 points away and all they want is that CL qualification spot.
PSG lost again today with Kang-in Lee injured. We can definitely play our best players today and recover for Wednesday, its friggin 4 days away.
We have to wake up in the second half, Odergaard was looking better, until he missed that ball, I don’t know what’s happening with Saka, he’s looking a shadow of himself.
Our GK and defenders were more confident to make through passes to Partey as compared to Rice in the CDM position
Rice’s work rate was better utilized with the box-to-box midfield role and the goal was the result of his good performance tonight
I hope Merino will come in the second half, because we’ll need his aerial ability in Paris
After watching 1st half. I started missing Merino. Who else?
White is really off the pace
Such a slack performance, can someone remind arteta there is something called substitutes
How ludicrous…. .
Hopefully we finish outside the champions league places and then please god the board sack this imposter arteta arsenal players just can’t shoot and head the ball
Another draw
We might lose on 2nd place
Would be typical of us to blow it and finish below City as usual. Right now we look all over the place..
I think we all saw that coming didn’t we. Substitutes anyone. Maybe with five minutes to go. lol.
Pile of sh*t the way we’ve performed lately. Not taking chances and missed passes is just the start of our problems. Hope I’m wrong but this promising could end up a complete dissapointment with nothing to show again?
Absolutely fed up with this … such a struggle to get a goal, then weakly giving away the lead
Another embarrassing performance I can’t say anymore apart from Raya has been crap for a few weeks now. Oh shit
We won’t be in the CL at this rate…
What was I saying about Raya
We will finish outside top 4, mark my words.
There you go… shocking!
Season peters out with a whimper..
Can’t defend to save our lives! End the season now. I’ve had enough. SMH!!!!
Ordinary nice sue ?
If so nice to see you mate .
Lost over 20 points from winning positions. Pathetic really.
Being a conspiracy theorist that was never getting overturned. Bring a realist Bournemouth deserved the benefit of the doubt. We are dire!
That was a clear elbow goal
What is clear is that we’re ending the season exactly like we have done for so many seasons before. On a nose dive..
In fairness saka should have had us 3 up but stirling is on soon party is playing like s oap
Surely Nwaneri deserves more game time, whatever is Arteta’s stubbornness against giving the boy more game time is, I don’t understand it.
OMG, what if we don’t overturn the loss to PSG, slip out of the top five and Spurs win the Europa League. It could happen. St Totteringhams Day anyone.
I’ve never been an Arteta in type of supporter but we are so weak with him in charge as we should be beating teams like Bournemouth at home with loads to spare but he doesn’t make enough changes when we need to win games.
My honest opinion is I’m embarrassed watching this garbage and I wouldn’t expect us to beat PSG on Wed. But the damage was done in the summer and in January with no decent signings
Its why we have failed to win the league 3 seasons on the trot. Dropping points to journeyman teams. With substandard performances. BUT there will be people who blame everything under the sun except the ONE reason, ARTETA and his awful style of play. Pass pass 💤pass pass💤 pass, back, back back💤
In fairness saka should have had us 3 up but stirling is on soon party is playing like s oap
My word
Is this score line correct
We are starting to lose from winning position?
Surely this distraction must be getting from bad to worst
And let the panic begin. Meanwhile, RC Strasbourg 2-1 PSG at the final whistle. Bring on Wednesday…
If you can defend this performance then you are an idiot
@NY_Gunner PSG won their league 2 weeks ago; they fielded 5 teenagers. lol.
We love mediocrity at this club.
When do we say the ‘Process’ has failed. Something is seriously wrong with the team and Arteta seems incapable of sorting it out.
PSG lost to Strasburg but they played away
We can’t win at home
If we play like this against PSG, we’ll be destroyed
Very depressing
Odeagard wouldn’t get in my pub team along with have of the arsenal team
Heads should roll at the end of this season. There needs to be accountability. We’ve literally thrown so much hard work away over the past few weeks. League for has nose dived and we’ve in danger of the usual capitulation we’ve all come to expect. An inquiry is due..
But we’ve made progress, we got to a Champions League Semi-final and probably qualified for the competition again. Winning things isn’t everything. The process is working. Next year it will all come good and we will win the quadruple. 🤪
Bryan, your comment above is very hipocricritial.
GunneRay, I was being sarcastic!
Sorry dude..
No problems. I think we are all frustrated and sometimes you just have make light of the situation.
Bryan,
I see you’ve hit the bottle early.🤣😂
Absolute and utter garbage. From the team selection, substitutions, tactics and quality of football. NOBODY can defend this rubbish. Arteta clueless!!!!!
Admin can
No they can’t
Guys looking at our fixtures we finishing 6th
Chelsea have to play Liverpool and Newcastle. That alone should just about see us qualify.
I’ve listened to count how many times I’ve watched a game of tele and thought to myself that I’m glad I didn’t get tickets in the ballot. What is going on. Ariola over Arteta methinks.
This team annoys the life out of me… all the gard work over the last few years just up in smoke.
PSG may have lost today and rested alot of players, we went full strength and got best at home again in the last week.
I don’t know who’s to blame or what’s to blame but enough is enough even with the UCL semi final, we are no where near equipped to win that competition Over Inter or Barca.
Every season, same thing. That’s not progress that’s stagnation but we have somehow gotten worse over the last few months. January window was open
Ty Sean going to use that term ,all yours though 👍
@Trustthestagnation.
Those Bournemouth goals were given to them on a platter. Crystal Palace and Bournemouth- 6 points clear to CL. Now we have to beat Liverpool, Newcastle and we should beat Southampton, although I’m doubting that at the moment.
but, but.Partey was back…
Anyone think Liverpool will lose to Chelsea and compound our woes about potentially missing out on top five?
I am now 100% convinced that from a tactical point of view Mikel Arteta is 100% clueless.
How can we expect a different outcome when doing the same thing?
Same period but different opponents, apparently no lessons learned!
Hopefully Paris will be different from Munich.
When you defend this crap you are a idiot as it isn’t defendable. Be true to yourself and stop talking crap, this was awful and probably embarrassing but some clowns will defend it, but before you slag me off can you actually explain how and why because I like so many others can’t defend Arteta anymore and he has to go and why not now. And before the abuse starts flying about I’m 64 and I still play in an over 55s league and I played today and the players today including a player who is 67 put in more effort than these overpaid underperforming superstars by a country mile. Shame on them
Fans are going to demand blood for this lost
No just accountability.
Sadly they won’t
Some will applaud second and call it a success
But when our backs are against the wall we step up apparently?
We will do well to hold on to second, it looks unlikely. That, if it happens would, for me be another failure. Being well clear and fading.
Reggie,
Sadly that’s what this team does. Ironically, we could finish below City, there just 3 points behind now.😂 You just can’t make this stuff up.🙄🤦♂️
Yes and they have had an awful season 🤔
Arteta can spout off all he likes about “how poor were were in certain moments of the game” and how we “lacked quality in the final third”. Fact is, we’ve heard it all before. Same crap, different toilet! This sqaud is obviously not reacting in the right way because this capitulation is pretty much expected as an Arsenal fan. It happens all too often. As much as I hate to say it, It may be time for new leadership!
Unless we fall out of the top five at the conclusion of the season Arteta is going nowhere as the Kronkes and the board will say he’s achieved the minimum required of him.
Most probably right, Bryan. Thing is, that can actually still happen. Even to think we will finish below City again when we were about 18 points ahead of them four or five weeks ago! We’ve dropped so many points in the last few months it’s almost criminal!
We haven’t won a match where Stirling finishes on the pitch. If anyone expected that referee not to give the goal, after the amount of wrong decisions he made in Bournemouths favour, they are deluded. I had a feeling that was going to happen, it’s been the same old story at home, we had to keep scoring, couldn’t sit on a 1-0.
Stirling was just one more of Artetas mistakes (which are still climbing)..
They might as well give PSG the game and stay at home absolutely no chance this is a very poor Arsenal team that are going nowhere under Arteta time for change font back Artanymore in the transfer window he’s had enough and still failed!
Another frustrating afternoon. We ran out of energy around 60 mins and have no quality options to change it. I feel Nwaneri could have come on for Odegaard around 60 and Martinelli or Trossard for Merino. Other than that we a just light on quality attacking options. Kai is a bigger miss than most will give credit.The aerial threat from Gabriel off the corners has been a massive miss as well .Nwaneri is still raw and massive questions need asking of Trossard, Odegaard and Martinelli in the summer. If we play like that in Paris we will get ripped apart.
Nevermind qualifying for top 4 – allowing city to overtake us at this stage, after the season they’ve had, would be embarrassing. Sadly, this looks extremely possible now.
I do think we’re heavily focused on the ECL and wanted to coast after going a goal up, but still.