Arsenal will be looking to snap out of their current crisis when they face West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns on Saturday. Arsenal won the reverse fixture 1-0 in December thanks to a late goal from Olivier Giroud and have also won all previous three meetings against the Baggies at the Emirates Stadium. However, the Gunners lost 2-1 at West Brom last season and have won just one of the last four direct meetings at The Hawthorns.
West Brom are coming into this match after back-to-back defeats, 2-0 at home against Crystal Palace at the start of the month and 3-0 at Everton last week. They are currently eighth in the Premier League table and have no realistic chance of fighting for a top-six finish, all they can do now is hope for a good last part of the season in preparation for next year. However, they will need to snap out of the losing streak as soon as possible as they have a match at Manchester United coming up next. Matt Phillips is the only injury concern for manager Tony Pulis ahead of this match.
Arsenal are going through the worst period of their season so far, they have lost five of their last eight matches in all competitions and crashed out of the Champions League after a disastrous 10-2 aggregate defeat against Bayern Munich. They did manage to pull through to the FA Cup semi-finals after a 5-0 victory over Lincoln City last weekend, but their Premier League performance is a big worry. They are still well into the race for a top-four finish, but with three of their last five Premier League games lost, that target could become unreachable. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Danny Welbeck picked up knocks recently and might miss out.
Probable line-ups:
West Brom: Foster - Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom - Fletcher, Livermore - Brunt, Morrison, Chadli - Rondon
Arsenal: Cech - Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal - Xhaka, Ramsey - Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi - Sanchez
My prediction: Arsenal to win 1-0.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
West Brom win - 5.00
Draw - 3.75
Arsenal win - 1.70
03/17/17, 12:03:33 AM
