It was a very exciting and promising showing last week at Goodison Park when Arsenal fans were able to witness the attacking trio of Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, and Alexandre Lacazette (finally)! All three of the players scored and created nearly 30 goal scoring chances. Mesut Ozil added an assist and eight scoring chances alone. The 5 goal rout of Everton could’ve been even more if it weren’t for Jordan Pickford.
Alas, are we to blame for the sacking of Ronald Koeman? The club and Koeman agreed to part ways the day after the match with Everton sitting in the relegation zone gaining 8 points from 9 games.
In between last week’s 5-2 win over Everton and this week’s matchup against Swansea, Arsenal defeated Norwich City in the Carabao Cup with some late game heroics from young star, Eddie Nketiah. Per an official Arsenal video, it took Eddie just 15 seconds to score the equalizer in the 86 minute. He followed that up with a towering header in the 96th minute that would end up being the match-winning goal.
With the Europa League and Carabao Cup competitions, it’s been exciting to watch Arsenal’s young prospects get minutes with the senior team. Arsene Wenger finally has enough depth where he can deploy two different Starting XIs, one for the Premier League campaign and the other for these other cup competitions. We’ve seen the likes of Nelson, Maitlan-Niles, Willock and now the emergence of Eddie Nketiah, which has a lot of Arsenal fans buzzing about the future. Will they get a chance in the Premier League? We’ll have to wait and find out.
On to the game at hand. Arsenal face 15th place Swansea City at the Emirates with the hope that we can gain some vital points and push towards the top four. Surprisingly, Swansea have been quite decent away from home, collecting 5 points from 4, including a 0-0 draw against Spurs.
Per Arsene Wenger, everyone from the Everton match is fit. Other good news on the injury front is Calum Chambers will be back in full training next week and David Ospina has a chance to face Belgrade on Thursday.
I think we’ll see a similar starting XI against Swansea that we saw last weekend at Goodison Park. With no significant injuries to the squad, Arsene Wenger has the option to deploy the same attacking trio and solid back line against a Swansea team that has scored 6 goals in 9 games.
Predicted Starting XI
Cech; Monreal, Mertesacker, Koscileny; Bellerin, Kolasinac; Xhaka, Ramsey; Alexis, Ozil, Lacazette
Predicted Result
With the rampant attack and playing at home, Arsenal will create many chance and test ex-Arsenal keeper Lukasz Fabianski. If given the chance to counter, Arsenal will surely take advantage. I’m predicting a 3-0 win to the Arsenal.