After being knocked out of the FA Cup against the Championship side Nottingham Forest, the Gunners produced a good performance against Chelsea in the League Cup Semi Final first leg. Arsene Wenger would be satisfied as they were able to keep a Clean Sheet against a strong Chelsea side. This will surely boost up their confidence ahead of the clash against Bournemouth in the Premier League.
Arsenal are currently situated at sixth position in the League Table as they have collected 39 points from 22 matches so far. The matches incoming for them are going to be very much important to finish in the top four position in the League Table at the end of the season.
On the other side, Bournemouth are currently situated at 16th position and are on the verge of the relegation zone. They have collected 21 Points from 22 matches so far in this season. But they would not be a very easy side to be beaten in the home stadium.
When & Where?
The action between Bournemouth & Arsenal gets underway at 1.30pm at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday 14 January.
Team News :
Joshua King and Junior Stanislas could both be in line for a return against Arsenal at the weekend. King limped off against Everton after making the opening goal, while Stanislas hasn’t played since the defeat to Manchester City.
The manager of AFC Bournemouth also provided an update on Tyrone Mings and Jermain Defoe as they continue to recover from longer term injuries.
“Both Joshua and Junior are making really good progress,” he said.
“They’re both back for us on the training pitch so we’re pleased with that, but we’ll have to make a late decision on whether they will play.
“We have no fresh injuries either. We’ve got Tyrone Mings who has a complicated injury, we thought a period of rest would solve it and that hasn’t worked. Unfortunately, he’ll have to have a longer period of rest before he returns.
“Jermain is good at the moment, he’s restricted to wearing a protected boot so there’s no massive update on him but we’re expecting him to progress in the time frame we have set.”
On the other hand, Arsene Wenger is having various injury problems to handle. Jack Wilshere is one of the injured players. Wenger told, ‘From Wednesday night, Jack was injured but we had good news. I saw him walking yesterday, he’s not yet out of the game on Sunday.’
Mesut Ozil was out of the squad of Arsenal in the first leg of the semifinal of League Cup. The player is also doubtful to play against Bournemouth.
‘We have an uncertainty about Ozil, he will have a test tomorrow, that at the moment is a big 50/50 for Bournemouth.’
‘It’s his knee. He had a swollen knee and a recurrence of what he had two or three weeks ago – that’s why he wasn’t involved on Wednesday.’, Wenger added.
But there is some good news for the Arsenal fans too as some of the key players are coming back from injury problems.
‘We have Ramsey back in the squad,’ Wenger said. ‘Koscielny next week, Kolasinac next week, Monreal, earliest next week as well. Olivier Giroud is two weeks away.’
Key Clash :
The key clash of the match is going to be between Alexandre Lacazette of Arsenal and Wilson of Bournemouth. Lacazette will be keen to get an away Goal as most of his goals have come at Emirates so far in this season. On the other hand, Wilson will be keen to prove his worth for Bournemouth. He already scored a hattrick for the team in this season and would be keen to replicate that performance against the Gunners.
Probable XI:
Bournemouth :
Begovic
Smith
Francis
S. Cook
Daniels
Ibe
L. Cook
Arter
Pugh
Afobe
Wilson
Arsenal:
Cech
Chambers
Mertesacker
Mustafi
Bellerin
Wilshere
Xhaka
Maitland-Niles
Iwobi
Sanchez
Lacazette
