🕟 Kick Off: 12:30 GMT

📍 Location: St James’ Park, Newcastle upon Tyne

📺 UK Broadcaster: TNT Sports

🙎🏻‍♂️ Referee: John Brooks

🔴 Arsenal Team News:

• Gabriel faces a late fitness test – 50/50 if he will be available.
• Calafiori is expected to be absent for a few weeks with a knee injury.
• Ben White missed the Preston match and hasn’t trained since.
• Ødegaard (ankle), Tomiyasu (knee), and Tierney (thigh) remain absent with longer term injuries.

⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟩🟧🟩🟥🟩

🇸🇦 Newcastle Team News:

• Lascelles and Botman are ruled out with long term injuries.
• Wilson is absent with a back issue.
• Trippier will miss the game with a thigh injury.
• Isak is a doubt
• Murphy is a doubt with a thigh issue.

⚽ Newcastle Form: 🟩🟥🟥🟧🟩

⚔️ Head-to-Head:

• Arsenal 4-1 Newcastle (24th Feb 2024, Premier League)
• Newcastle 1-0 Arsenal (4th Nov 2023, Premier League)
• Newcastle 0-2 Arsenal (7th May 2023, Premier League)
• Arsenal 0-0 Newcastle (3rd Jan 2023, Premier League)
• Newcastle 2-0 Arsenal (16th May 2022, Premier League)

📖 Match Facts:

• Newcastle are winless in their last five league matches, with their last victory coming away at Wolves on the 15th September – they went through all of October without a league win.
• Despite poor league form, Newcastle come into this game hot off the back of knocking Chelsea out of the League Cup with a 2-0 victory at St James’ Park.
• Arsenal’s last league victory was on the 5th of October against Southampton, having struggled since with a loss away at Bournemouth and a draw at home to Liverpool.

🎲 Odds (Betway):

• Newcastle – 11/4
• Draw – 13/5
• Arsenal – 19/10

✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings

Looking at the H2H above, this fixture has become quite unpredictable as of late. This fixture last year was full of controversy, with the only goal coming from a corner that had three separate VAR checks on it, all of them going the way of the home side resulting in the goal standing. The big one for me was the push by Joelinton on Gabriel, he had his hands on his neck, pushing him down, making it impossible for our defender to get up in the air. Clear foul for me, the goal shouldn’t have stood. I don’t want to talk too much about it in fear of sounding like Ten Hag talking about that offside goal.

Anyway, St James’ Park is a tough place to go to. The away fans sit in a different postcode, and the home fans are loud at the worst of times, making it very hard for traveling fans to drum up any kind of atmosphere in favour of their team. Man City came away from SJP (Oil Classico as I like to call it) with a point after a 1-1 draw, this is is a good opportunity to make up some ground on the other oil club.

Arsenal have some key players to watch here. Bukayo Saka made his return against Liverpool and featured off the bench against Preston, so I expect him to be back to full fitness. We are simply a better team with him on the pitch, as we saw against Liverpool. My god, what a goal he scored. He makes it look easy. Arteta suggested Ben White is a strong doubt for this game given that he hasn’t trained this week, but any trust placed in Mikel when it comes to injury news is completely misplaced. There is no way of knowing the status of our players if the news comes directly from him.

Although SJP is a tough place to go, we have won there recently. For me, taking all three points is vital here especially given the recent league form of the home side. We can’t keep dropping points in chunks, we need to keep on the backs of Man City.