Arsenal v Southampton Preview

After the highs of the 4-1 win against CSKA Moscow on Thursday night it’s back to Premier League action for Arsenal today when they play at home to Southampton. With sixth place looking more and more certain with each passing week it’s not easy to get up For Premier League games, but that’s just what we have to do today. I’ve a very busy day ahead of me so my preview is going to have to be short.

I suppose the big question today is who will and who won’t play with Thursday’s trip to Moscow foremost in our thoughts. The Europa League is the priority from here on in and we just need to amass enough points to keep Burnley at bay. Three points against a struggling Southampton team today would go a long way to tightening our grip on that sixth spot.

Normally I don’t have too much of a problem with Southampton, but the appointment of Mark Hughes as their manager gives the game an extra edge and I would be perfectly happy to see them relegated now. They’re on a bad run at the moment and any sort of a decent team we put out today should be able to put them away.

If we can make chances for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang then I think we will get the goals required and hopefully goal shy Southampton won’t cause our leaky defence too many problems. Arsene Wenger has rested Mesut Ozil, Laurent Koscielny and Alexandre Lacazette and rightly so, but I hope a team with Ozil and the injured Henrikh Mkhitaryan can dominate and make the chances to win the game. Any sort of win will do I suppose.