Arsenal FC – Manchester City

BPL 2018-19 – Arsenal FC – Manchester City Match Preview




Premier League is back, and we didn’t have to wait long to see two of the top dogs go at it! Manchester City are once again bookies favourites to go all the way and after winning Community Shield last weekend against Chelsea at Wembley they are coming to the Emirates to start the season with a win. Arsenal for the first time in 22 years will be walking out to a game without Arsene Wenger in charge as the new era under Unai Emery begins!

Arsenal

Arsenal had the busiest summers in ages as they are ready to move on from legendary Arsene Wenger and see what a younger generation of Unai Emery can bring to the club! Wenger left Arsenal in a good shape as he departed straight after the last game which left club with plenty of time to find a replacement and let he new guy implement his signings and build the team around him. After Wenger left everyone knew that the new managers first job would be to fix defence, transfer window activity showed exactly that as Arsenal done their business in the first month of summer signing GK – Leno, RB – Lichtsteiner, CB – Sokratis, DM – Guendouzi, CDM – Torreira. Progress was made as a lot of Arsenal fans seen a lot of mistakes especially at RB position with Bellerin, so the experience of highly rated Swiss defender will only bring the best out of him. CB area was very important as Arsenal let Chambers go out on loan to Fulham and starting defender Koscielny is still injured and is not expected to be back until November. Midfield changed a lot and from what we were able to see from friendly games those changes were for the better as the team new signing Guendouzi showed what he was capable of, many say he was the star of the pre-season. Club said goodbye to home grown Jack Wilshere who left on a free transfer to West Ham, a player who will be missed especially by the fans, but at the same time his injury record was not the best, so decision had to be made. Santi Cazorla left the team on a free as well, after he got injured and missed nearly 2 years (after the injury he was told he might lose his leg because of the infection) and few days ago he got 1-year contract at Villarreal after a successful pre-season which made a great comeback story and I am sure every single Arsenal fan is happy for him as he was one of their favourites. The only business Arsenal done in attack was to sell Perez to West Ham for 4 million and give Iwobi new contract as this area with Aubameyang and Lacazette partnership was seen as one of the best in the league and it didn’t need anything added to.

During pre-season Arsenal started with 8-0 win over Boreham Wood and then took part in Champions Cup where they played 3 games against top European teams Atletico Madrid, PSG and Chelsea. Talking about a team who have problems at the back, they showed that they are improving having conceded only 3 times against teams like these. They drew against Atletico Madrid 1-1 (Lost after pen), beat PSG 5-1 and Drew against Chelsea 1-1 (Won after pen), following that last friendly of the pre-season was against Lazio where they won 2-0 once again showing that the defence is slowly getting better. Up front Lacazzete and Aubameyang partnership managed 7 goals which is a great sign going in to new season!

In regard to team news Arsenal will be without Koscielny (long term injury), Kolasinac (who will miss up to 8 weeks), Monreal (who only started to train last week) and Aaron Ramsey who is 50-50 for this game (will have a late fitness test as he got injured warming up for the friendly against Chelsea two weeks ago). Arsenal expected to start R.Nelson in LB position with Torreira and Xhaka taking up the CDM positions. At CB new signing Sokratis will partner Mustafi. There is a real question mark in regard to who is going to start at RB as Bellerin is much faster, but new signing Lichtsteiner is more experienced, makes less mistakes and is tougher to play against. Ozil will most definitely take up CAM as he is there to feed balls to Lacazzete and Aubameyang up front. Mkhitaryan most likely will finish off the front 3 as he is there to do similar job to Ozil. Peter Cech will start in goal and will be made captain for this game.

Manchester City

Manchester City coming off a BPL winning season, after watching this team last season many would say all they had to do during summer was to stay put but knowing that they can spend as much as they like to bring anyone they like that was not going to happen. City sent a lot of their players to World Cup with many of them reaching later stages of the competition, but in their system,  they were ready to make a comeback for the last game of the pre-season (Only De Bruyne was late to come back). Coming off a perfect season where the league was almost won with 10 games left City saw a need to improve their attacking force and went out and got Leicester star Mahrez, many would question did they really needed him with Sane, Sterling, Aguero, Jesus, De Bruyne and Diaz capable of playing that position or was the signing only to stop him going to another top club and making the stronger, or maybe City thought they can make another Salah from him. 60m was spent to bring the Algerian to Manchester. Other 2 signings City made was at CM position with Sandler from Zwolle and Arzani (free agent). Like it or not adding Mahrez to compete with Sane and Sterling for the same position will scare the living hell out of the other teams as those 3 wingers can do it all. A lot of young players left the club, only one of them went for cash as Angus Gunn transferred to Southampton for 13.5m other players Becerra – Stuttgart, Davenport – Blackburn, Diskerud – Ulsan Hyundai, Duhaney – Free Agent, Harrison – Leeds, Kongolo – Heerenveen, Palmer-Brown – Breda, Tasende – PSV, Yaya Toure – Free Agent and Villar – Deportivo all of whom left the club for free.

During pre-season Manchester City took part in the same Champions Cup as Arsenal, they also played 3 games against top European teams Dortmund, Liverpool and Bayern Munich. At the beginning of the Cup City were still missing a lot of their World Cup stars and that showed in a loses against Dortmund 1-0 and Liverpool 1-2, against Bayern Munich few of them have joined and that brought quality to the team which helped them to beat Bayern 3-2. Mahrez played in all 3 games but finished dry with 0 goals and 0 assist to his name, but danger he created down the left and right was noticeable. Last so-called pre-season game was last week in a Community Shield final against Chelsea where they were able to put out most of their stars making up a very dangerous team. City won the game 2-0, from the attacking point of view it should have been more, but from the defensive point of view they should have conceded 1 or 2. City started that game with GK - Bravo, RB - Walker, CB - Stones, CB - Laporte, LB - Mendy, CM - Silva, CM - Fernandinho, CAM - Foden, LW - Sane, ST - Aguero and RW – Mahrez. For the Arsenal game we can see few changes, GK Ederson is expected to change Bravo, CB Kompany is expected to change injured Laporte, Gundogan could replace youngster Foden and there is a real question mark in regard to De Bruyne who only joined the team last week so dependant on his fitness levels he might be one or two weeks short of comeback.

In other team news City will be without new signing Sandler who is injured and is expected to miss up to 4 weeks, Danilo was injured during World Cup for Brazil and timetable for his return is a big question mark same goes to Mangala who is weeks away.

What to Expect

Bookies are making Manchester City a clear favourite to win this game, but it would be wise to slow down a bit and don’t rush in to taking wins at the begging of the season as there is no implication to how the teams like Arsenal in this situation/underdog will play especially when it’s a home game. Both teams like to control the ball, so we can expect both teams to have 15-20 minutes lapses where they are dominating. Arsenal still have question marks in defence so that’s a problem against City strike force, at the same time City looked shaky at the back as well and with Lacazette + Aubameyang scoring goals during pre-season we can see goals from Arsenal. No matter what these teams are much better going forward then defending so this game could have a lot of goals. 2-2 is a real possibility, but at the same time City have enough to win this 3-1 or 3-2, but knowing how underdogs like to provide a lot of surprises at the beginning of the season Arsenal surely good enough to go on and win this one 3-1 or 3-2, one way or the other goals are expected here and the safest bet would be over 2.5 (safer option) or over 3.5 (more value).

Match Odds (Pinnacle)

Arsenal FC Win – 4.029

Manchester City Win – 1.892

Draw – 4.07

KICK OFF – 12TH August 2018 – 4pm UK time