So Arsenal go into this key clash with Man City with a number of decent statistics in their favour.
Arsenal’s only major summer signing was the legend that is Petr Cech who was signed for a ridiculously low price of around £11 million in the summer from Chelsea and the keeper has proven to be one of the signings of the summer transforming Arsenal’s defence into an integrated efficient unit. Cech for his own personal stats has equalled David James’ clean sheets record of 169 Premier League games and only needs one more clean sheet to claim the record for himself – something which is more than likely to happen before the end of the season if not in the next few games.
Mesut Ozil who has certainly garnered the most press attention and pundit plaudits this year, has already had a hand in an amazing 15 goals in 15 Premier League appearances this season (two goals, 13 assists) – he was only involved in nine goals (four goals, five assists) in 22 PL apps in 2014-15 so he is on a major upswing and has certainly justified his £42.5million fee from Real Madrid in the summer of 2014. We sense there is still much more to come from the sublime German as he has said he feels he is playing the best football of his career.
Olivier Giroud has scored in eight of his last 12 Premier League appearances for Arsenal and has 11 goals in his last 13 appearances for the club in all competitions and the Frenchman has definitely risen up to the challenge posed by Theo Walcott and looks like his form will continue and could well help lead the Gunners to the League title despite Leicester City being in 1st place for Christmas which usually means that they will win the Premier League.
Should Monday night’s fixture not go Arsenal’s way they will get to gain revenge on Saturday, 17 January, 15:00 at the Etihad.
On the plus side for the Gunners, City have won exactly zero matches of their last 4 games away in the Premier League and to make matters worse have not scored in their last 3 matches in a row – which does not bode well for the citizens.
This may suggest that Manchester City are due however as the last time they failed to register a goal in 4 successive Premier League away games was way back in February 2006.
We think Arsenal are up to the task especially if Alexis Sanchez makes his miraculous return from his hamstring injury and even if he does not we think a 2-1 win is on the cards for Wenger’s men.