Premier League: Bournemouth vs Arsenal preview

Title contenders Arsenal travel to Bournemouth on Tuesday for a match that they must win if they want to stay in the race for the Premier League title. Arsenal won the reverse fixture 3-1 in November, with two goals from Alexis Sanchez and one from Theo Walcott. That was the third consecutive win for the Gunners against the Cherries as last season they won both direct meetings with the same scoreline: 2-0. Bournemouth are sitting comfortably right in the middle of the league table, the relegation zone is ten points away and the Cherries don't have major worries at the moment. On New Year's Eve they secured a comfortable 3-0 victory at Swansea, but this was just their second victory in the last five league matches. The curious thing about Bournemouth is that they rarely draw, they haven't recorded a draw in ten league matches and have just three since the start of the season. Lewis Cook and Marc Pugh are injured and won't be able to play on Tuesday. Arsenal started the new year with a solid 2-0 home victory over Crystal Palace, with Olivier Giroud scoring probably the best goal of his career with a sensational scorpion kick. That was the second consecutive win for the Gunners, who moved up to third place, nine points behind leaders Chelsea. However, Arsene Wenger still has to deal with several injury concerns as Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott became unavailable and added their names to a rather long list along with Santi Cazorla, Mathieu Debuchy, Kieran Gibbs and Per Mertesacker. Shkodran Mustafi is fit again but Gabriel Paulista has done well in his absence and might keep his place in the starting eleven for now. Probable line-ups: Bournemouth: Boruc - Francis, Cook, Ake, Daniels - Arter, Surman - Smith, King, Stanislas - Wilson Arsenal: Cech - Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal - Coquelin, Xhaka - Chamberlain, Iwobi, Sanchez - Giroud My prediction: Arsenal to win 1-0. Here are the odds for the match at Bet365: Bournemouth win - 4.75 Draw - 3.90 Arsenal win - 1.80