Date:August 29 : 12:45 BST
Venue: St. James Park
Arsenal are looking to right their wrongs of the
opening couple of weeks(with Arsene Wenger’s men claiming just four points from their
opening three fixtures despite being touted by many as genuine title contenders
this season)
as they travel to Newcastle United This Matchday.
Heading into an international break, Newcastle United vs
Arsenal takes on an added importance due to the fact that the Magpies are yet
to win a Barclays Premier League game yet this season, while the Gunners’ title
challenge looks in danger of faltering already.
Arsenal manager has described his team start as ‘Average’
and have described Newcastle performance as defensive. Newcastle will take belief from
their performance last weekend as they try to record their first league win
under Steve McClaren, though they will be wary of Arsenal's obvious threat when
they do click going forward.
Newcastle will be looking to start their first Premier League game including Florian Thauvin,after the new recruit impressed in the Midweek. They come into the game off the back of a 4-1 midweek win over League Two’s Northampton Town in the League Cup. Florian Thauvin was easily their best performer, being involved in all four goals including scoring one himself. He will be hoping that performance will have earned him a starting place for this one.The Hosts might have some news to boost the confidence as Moussa Sissoko may return from Groin problem while Janmaat is available after serving a ban last week.
Arsenal may stick to Chambers and
Paulista Gabriel as Centre Backs with Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny may
miss the fixture again this week with illness. Danny Welbeck remains out with a
knee injury but the striker could resume training after the international break. The North London side will feel confident going into
the tie given their form against Newcastle in recent years, having won the last
seven meetings between the sides in all competitions.In those last seven
meetings Arsenal have scored 20 against Newcastle, if that is anything to go by
we could be in for a goal-fest this weekend.
“You want
obviously to continue the good momentum,” Giroud told Arsenal Player. “For me
it will be a bit special, but the main thing is to return to London with the
three points.
“I am not going to say [why I do well against Newcastle] because then there are no more secrets - I need to keep them for me! It is maybe luck or I don’t know, but I really want to keep scoring against them and help the team win the three points
“It doesn’t matter who scores, but if it is me I will be really happy because it is always nice for a striker to score.
“We need the win, so we will go there with a big motivation before the international break. It is never easy to play there, even if we have been successful in the last games against them, especially there. We are aware it is going to be a tough game and we need to be at 100 per cent.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger: "Maybe we are not firing on all cylinders at the
moment. By definition, finishing is a little bit cyclical and it goes in
cycles."
"Teams come and defend very deep at our home...
at the moment we want it so much at home that we're trying to force it a little
bit.
"Our
results away from home, with goalscoring opportunities and our finishing
percentage, has been higher recently."
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