🕟 Kick Off: 17:30 GMT

📍 Location: Gtech Community Stadium, Brentford, West London

📺 UK Broadcaster: TNT Sports

🙎🏻‍♂️ Referee: Peter Bankes

🔴 Arsenal Team News:

• Arteta gave a positive sounding update regarding Sterling (knee), but we don’t know much about his situation.
• Saka (hamstring), Tomiyasu (knee) and Ben White (knee) are absent with long term injuries.

⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟩🟩🟩🟧🟩

🐝 Brentford Team News:

• Joshua Dasilva is recovering from a knee injury and remains ruled out.
• Ethan Pinnock is out with a thigh injury; expected to be a long-term absence.
• Kristoffer Ajer suffered an ankle injury and is ruled out for weeks.
• Sepp van den Berg has a groin/hip injury and faces a late fitness test for Arsenal (50% chance).
• Ben Mee is being assessed for an unspecified issue and faces a late fitness test (25% chance).
• Mathias Jensen is recovering from a thigh injury and also faces a late fitness test (25% chance).
• Aaron Hickey had a tendon repair surgery and has no return date.
• Rico Henry is recovering from a knee injury and remains ruled out.
• Thiago Rodrigues is sidelined with a joint infection and will be out for weeks.
• Mark Flekken is currently being assessed for a thigh injury, with no return date yet.
• Gustavo Gomes has a stress fracture in his lower back and is ruled out indefinitely.

⚽ Brentford Form: 🟧🟥🟥🟥🟩

⚔️ Head-to-Head:

• Arsenal 2-1 Brentford (9th Mar 2024, Premier League)
• Brentford 0-1 Arsenal (25th Nov 2023, Premier League)
• Brentford 0-1 Arsenal (27th Sept 2023, EFL Cup)
• Arsenal 1-1 Brentford (11th Feb 2023, Premier League)
• Brentford 0-3 Arsenal (18th Sept 2022, Premier League)

📖 Match Facts:

• Brentford haven’t beaten Arsenal since their first game in the Premier League in August 2021. Prior to this, their previous win against Arsenal was in 1938.
• Arsenal have the best record on New Years Day in the league, with a total of 31 points accumulated in New Years Day fixtures.

🎲 Odds (Betway):

• Brentford – 11/2
• Draw – 7/2
• Arsenal – 9/20

✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings

This post is going up earlier than it usually would, as I have friends coming over tomorrow to start the New Years celebrations early, so I probably won’t be conscious until the game. I hope you don’t mind!

Here we are, playing on New Years Day for some reason, whilst other teams play their fixtures on the 29th and the 30th. All eyes on us again, as was the case with the Ipswich game where we also played last.

The big news of this week was that Bukayo Saka had surgery on what is rumoured to be a full hamstring detachment. Not great news. This was the same surgery that Reece James underwent before his fitness went off the rails. We can only hope that our man doesn’t suffer the same fate.

We will probably be making do with Martinelli on the right and Trossard on the left, as we did against Ipswich. There’s also the option to shift Jesus out to either wing, with Havertz returning to his favoured position up front. We have options – and we would have even more if Raheem Sterling was fit.

Speaking of injuries, that list of Brentford injuries is the largest once I have seen since I started writing these threads. They are absolutely ravaged by injury. We should consider ourselves lucky after looking at that monstrous injury list. That being said, their main men are fit and available; Wissa and Mbuemo will likely start, and with their combined 19 goals this season they could certainly do some damage.