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Preview: Southampton v Arsenal, team news, line-up & prediction

By on December 24, 2015

mesut ozil arsenal

Arsenal travel to St Mary’s to take on Southampton on Boxing Day looking to keep the pressure on Premier League leaders Leicester City.

Monday night’s stunning 2-1 win over Manchester City saw us open a four point gap over the Citizens and ensured we kept pace with surprise leaders Leicester after they beat Everton at Goodison.

We’re now well placed in the title race and with the Foxes facing a tough trip to Liverpool on Saturday, we have an excellent opportunity to climb to the top of the league if we can come away from the South Coast with all three points.

The win over City made it four on the bounce in all competitions so the boys should be full of confidence, but it’s vital we continue to build the momentum over this hectic festive period.

Team News

Sanchez suffered a setback in his recovery from a hamstring injury last week and isn’t expected to return until January 10th.

The Chilean international joins Wilshere on the sidelines as the midfielder is still not ready to make his comeback following a fibula fracture which he suffered way back in August.

Rosicky is due back in training in three weeks but he remains unavailable along with Welbeck, Cazorla, Coquelin and Arteta.

Preferred Line-up

Arsene is going to have to start using his squad players over the next few weeks as we play four games in just 13 days. I personally wouldn’t mix things up away to Southampton this weekend so I’d go with the vast majority of the side that beat City before making changes at home to Bournemouth on Monday.

The only one change I would make this weekend is to bring Oxlade-Chamberlain in and give Campbell a well-earned rest.

Prediction

Southampton away is never usually an easy game but the Saints are in terrible form of late with Koeman’s men picking up just one point from their last five games. With that said, I do think they’ll up their game against us this weekend but I’m still backing the boys to come home with the three points with Mesut Ozil once again proving vital to the victory.

Southampton 1-2 Arsenal

COYG!!!

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