Arsenal have seemingly returned to form after registering a dominant win over struggling West Ham on Wednesday night as they scored 3 sublime team goals and look to be back in the groove and are playing for the boss again.
To find the last time Arsenal lost away to Crystal Palace in the top flight you would have to go way back to November 1979 and since that last loss the Gunners have registered 6 wins with 5 draws.
Arsenal while being managed by Arsene Wenger have never been beaten by Palace winning on 8 occasions and drawing 3 times. Wenger is only unbeaten in more games against Portsmouth (14 times) and Leicester City (18 times).
Arsene Wenger may well find a spot for Olivier Giroud on Monday night as the French striker has a fine recent record vs the Eagles having scored in each of his past 3 appearances at Selhurst Park plus he also bulged the net on Wednesday night against Sam Allardyce’s former club West Ham.
Folowing their 3-0 win over the Hammers, Arsenal have now scored 101 goals across all competitions this campaign and they are the only Premier League club to reach the century milestone coming into this round of matches.
Crystal Palace are on a 12 game winless streak vs Arsenal and have lost 11 and drawn 3 of their last 15 games against their London rivals while only registering a solitary victory.
The Eagles have found goals hard to come by against the Gunners as since overcoming Arsenal 2-1 back in October of 1994, they have scored only 6 times across 12 league games against them.
Sam Allardyce has a dodgy record against Arsene Wenger in the Premier League having lost 15 times, the most defeats he has against any manager in the competition. Big Sam’s last league win over Wenger in the Premier League was in May 2010 with Blackburn Rovers – he’s lost nine of the last 10 meetings since with only 1 draw.
Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez has kept a clean sheet in three of the four Premier League games he’s started for Arsenal and he could get the start again as Arsene Wenger may look to continue with the youngster after he kept an impressive clean sheet in midweek against the Hammers. Building the youngster’s confidence after such a good performance would be a good option especially after he looked so accomplished against West Ham and it will give David Ospina and Petr Cech more time to recover.
We think that despite Palace’s recent run of 4 wins on the bounce, a win over the Gunner will prove to be a step too far and we expect Arsenal to build on their midweek win and come out on top by a 3-1 score over Sam Allardyce’s team.