Crystal Palace look safe when it comes to relegation so there’s not much to fight for but they still need points to guarantee survival so they will certainly be coming to play. Arsenal should take try to advantage of this situation and continue their unbeaten streak in order to keep their hopes up when it comes to the Premier League title. Unfortunately, after this Saturday, a win is imperative as Chelsea was not able to take away any points from Manchester City. There are 18 points left in this season and a 13-point difference between Leicester and Arsenal. Hopefully that difference will drop to 10 after this Sunday. The leaders are playing West Ham who after last week’s draw with the Gunners, have an excellent game and could cause some serious damage to Leicester.

Going forward with the analysis, Arsenal are definite favorites. Aside from Wilshere, Cazorla, Rosicky and Oxlade-Chamberlain who have been out for the period of the season, the entire lot will be available. Crystal Palace on the other side have to handle important absences. Appiah and Chamakh are out until August and Gayle is suffering from a thigh injury that will keep him out until late April. McArthur, Hangeland and Zaha are doubtful according to the Guardian who suggest none of the above mentioned will be featured against Wenger’s side. In terms of form Crystal Palace won only 1 of their last 6 games and have one of the weakest attacks in the league. Cabaye, Dann and Wickam lead with 5 goals each meaning that Wenger should not worry too much about Cech’s clean sheet.

Arsenal’s boss wanted to keep the defense motivated though and issued the following statement when asked about the Crystal Palace’s lot: “Crystal Palace should be completely safe even if they may still need one or two points.They’re a team with a good offensive potential, with strong individuals like (Yannick) Bolasie, (Wilfried) Zaha, (Emmanuel) Adebayor, (Connor) Wickham. So we have to rectify the fact we conceded (three) at West Ham and come back to being strong defensively.”

When it comes to statistics, Arsenal have lost only 3 games out of 38 clashes with Crystal Palace. The Gunners will have another good reason to win this game as they are just one victory short of reaching the 500-win Premier League milestone.

Score Prediction: Arsenal 3 – 1 Crystal Palace

Predicted line-ups:

Arsenal Starting XI

Crystal Palace Starting XI