It`s been 16 years since Arsenal lost their first Boxing Day match against Coventry. It was 3-2 back in 1999 and since then no team managed to administer such a harsh defeat to the Gunners as Southampton did on Saturday. Hopefully bygones will be bygones as Wenger needs to up the morale for the game against Bournemouth. It`s going to be a difficult encounter for Arsenal who face a team that has not lost any of their past 6 games. The Cherries could cause some serious damage if not handled properly. Basically, that is what most think happened against the Saints. Arsenal did not put heart in their performance and saw the game as ‘won’ before setting foot on the pitch. A similar attitude could lead to a similar result.
The pressure is on for Arsenal who could end the year in 1st place or drop to 3rd place if they don’t manage to win. City is facing Leicester and a win from the Citizens would be the perfect year-end present for Wenger if he does defeat Bournemouth.
In terms of lot everyone knows the problems Arsenal are faced with. Fortunately the game against Southampton showed that maybe Chambers is a decent replacement for Flamini who was not in the best of form. Oxlade-Chamberlain could also be used to replace Campbell who is also lacking form. Walcott is a bit harder to replace as he can always pull a rabbit out of the hat – see what he did against City. With these two changes, Arsenal would probably feel safer defense wise and would also gain some height to use during set pieces. Southampton had the upper hand over the Gunners who only had Mertesacker to handle players like Fonte.
This is Arsenal’s last game of the year and hopefully the Boxing Day defeat will be the only surprise of December. The Gunners have not lost their last fixture of December since 2006 and hopefully those statistics will not change on Monday.
Predicted Line-up: Cech; Monreal, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Bellerin, Chambers, Ramsey, Ozil, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Giroud