Arsenal have a solid advantage to defend on Thursday when they face CSKA Moscow at Arena CSKA in the Russian capital city in the second leg of their UEFA Europa League quarter-finals tie. The Gunners secured a 4-1 victory in the first leg last week, Aaron Ramsey and Alexandre Lacazette scored two goals apiece for Arsenal and Aleksandr Golovin reduced the arrears for CSKA. That away goal could prove very important, if CSKA score an early goal then things could get ugly for Arsenal.
The odds are not looking too good for CSKA if we look at their history against opponents from England as they have not won any of their last six matches at home against English teams. Moreover, last weekend they lost 2-1 at home in the Russian Premier League to relegation contenders Dynamo Moscow and are now eight points behind leaders Lokomotiv Moscow. Viktor Vasin and Mario Fernandes are injured and won't be available for the home side, but Kirill Nababkin will return to the starting eleven after having missed the first leg through suspension.
Arsenal seem to be heading in a good direction lately, they have won their last six matches in all competitions and also kept three clean sheets in the process. Last weekend they secured a 3-2 Premier League victory over Southampton and Danny Welbeck scored twice in that match. The Europa League remains the only chance to qualify for the Champions League for the Gunners, so they will most likely treat the second leg in Moscow very seriously. Henrikh Mkhitaryan picked up a knee injury in the first leg and he will be out for a while, while cup goalkeeper David Ospina is an injury doubt.
Probable line-ups:
CSKA: Akinfeev - A. Berezutski, V. Berezutski, Ignashevich - Kuchaev, Dzagoev, Natkho, Golovin, Nababkin - Musa, Wernbloom
Arsenal: Cech - Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal - Ramsey, Xhaka - Welbeck, Wilshere, Ozil - Lacazette
My prediction: 2-2 draw.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
CSKA win - 3.70
Draw - 3.75
Arsenal win - 2.04
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Comments (1)
sharpe
04/27/18, 02:04:01 PM
Arsenal were pretty shaky in that one allowing the home side of scorning two and being really close to the third goal which would of really break the Gunners I think. But...
Arsenal were pretty shaky in that one allowing the home side of scorning two and being really close to the third goal which would of really break the Gunners I think. But they avoid that with a late Wellbeck goal and in the end even equalized although I think they should of loss the game because of the way CSKA outplayed them during bigger part of the time.
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