Sunday, December 22, 2024

Arsenal vs. Sunderland: Team News & Likely Line-Ups For Both Sides

Arsenal simply have to keep on winning if they are to stand any chance of reaching the Champions League next season.

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Their superb run of form has to continue on Tuesday night as they welcome Championship-bound Sunderland to the Emirates and hope Liverpool or Man City slip up.

Amazingly, the race for fourth place could even come down to goal difference, so it will be interesting to see how Arsene Wenger lines his side up following recent results.

Arsenal picked up three wins in the space of seven days last week, and their penultimate Premier League game provides them with a chance to pick up even more goals.

The last thing Sunderland need right now is a game like this, and it looks as if David Moyes will contemplate a mini injury crisis to get through the 90 minutes.

Arsenal Team News

Despite some concerns over his fitness, Alexis Sanchez took part in full training on Monday morning and will be fighting to start yet another game in the Premier League.

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Laurent Koscielny is struggling to shake off his recurring problem that left him out of the game against Southampton and Wenger won’t risk the defender.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is now facing a race to recover in time for the FA Cup final on May 27th, but Wenger believes the wing-back has an 80% chance of starting.

Even though he’s been nowhere to be seen recently, Lucas Perez is fit and available, whilst Granit Xhaka could be rested as a matter of fatigue.

Arsenal Absentees: Oxlade-Chamberlain (hamstring), Koscielny (knee), Cazorla (ankle)

Arsenal’s Likely Line-Up

Goalkeeper: Petr Cech

Defence: Rob Holding, Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal

Wing-backs: Hector Bellerin and Kieran Gibbs

Midfield: Aaron Ramsey and Francis Coquelin

Attacking Midfield: Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott

Centre Forward: Danny Welbeck

Sunderland Team News

As I said above, Moyes has a lot of injuries to deal with at the moment and the club will be wanting the season to end as soon as it possibly can.

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With Duncan Watmore and Victor Anichebe ruled out it will be down to their top goalscorer and Arsenal fan, Jermaine Defoe, to lead the line yet again.

Moyes insisted he would use some members of the U23’s if he felt it to be necessary after revealing many of his players are now saying they’ve pulled up injured!

Lee Cattermole is also unavailable which means the chances of a Gunners injury are far less considering his discipline record.

Sunderland Absentees: Anichebe (hamstring), Cattermole (achilles), Denayer (knock), Honeyman (back), Kirchhoff (knee), Mcnair (knee), Pienaar (ankle), Watmore (knee)

Sunderland’s Likely Line-Up

Goalkeeper: Pickford

Defence: Jones, O’Shea, Kone, Manquillo

Defensive Midfield: Rodwell

Midfield: Borini, Larsson, Ndong, Khazri

Centre Forward: Defoe

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