MATCH FACTS:
Brighton have won back-to-back home PL matches, scoring seven goals in the process. They last won three in a row at home in the top flight in September 1982.
Chris Hughton could become only the third manager to beat Arsene Wenger in the Premier League with three different clubs, after Mark Hughes (4) and Sam Allardyce (3).
Arsenal are unbeaten in 34 PL matches against promoted sides (W29 D5), ever since a 2-1 loss against Queens Park Rangers in March 2012.
The Amex Stadium will be the 57th ground at which Arsenal have played a PL match. They have won at 50 of the previous 56 (89.3%). Only Liverpool have won at a higher percentage (93.1% - 54/58).
Wouldn’t begrudge them the points here as I want them to stay up. By the same token I’ll be mad if we don’t beat Stoke.
Anyone playing Arsenal between now and May has got to be sizing us up for 3 point potential, so we could affect the relegation scrap significantly (Brighton Stoke Southampton West Ham Huddersfield Newcastle all to play)
Did you know that all our games until the end of April are on TV? And perhaps beyond that, TV games only go up to April 30 atm. That’s our next 9 games (11/12 if we win our EL ties) on top of all the ones that have been on TV recently. It’s as if Sky are punishing us!
They’re even showing our games v Stoke and Southampton live!
They have indeed given up, but I think it’s more than plausible a deal has been done / is being done behind the scenes for a ‘mutual parting of the ways’ in the summer and in such a case, Wenger has to tell the players shortly after (I guess? It’s a replica of the previous delayed contract extension when we didn’t know just when he’d told the players he was staying). And as a result, do they down tools completely and start phoning their agents, or try and give it one last go for the manager that signed them all
Our away form is poor and we have just been embarrassed by Man City twice, and we are on the worst run of games I can remember, with a first team full of players that aren’t interested.
Man City are about the best team in Europe so it’s hard to judge if they were brilliant or we were useless, probably a bit of both.
But if we don’t up our game for this significantly, then it will only confirm what most people are thinking, and that Wenger hasn’t got the backing of the players.
We might scrape this or it could be a draw.
I’ll go 2-1 to us, in a very tight game.
Who knows, we might have a sudden reversal whereby we struggle in all the remaining home games because of the booing / crowd pressure etc and do better on the road because of practically zero expectation and that lack of pressure.
