🕟 Kick Off: 14:00 GMT (clocks change this weekend!)

🏟️ Venue: Emirates Stadium

📺 UK Broadcaster: Sky Sports

🙎🏻‍♂️ Referee: Thomas Bramall

📹 VAR: Chris Kavanagh

🔴 Arsenal Team News:

• Gabriel: A doubt after coming off against Atletico Madrid.
• Odegaard: Ruled out with an MCL injury.
• Madueke: Ruled out with a knee injury. Return date unknown.
• Havertz: Nearing a return but currently unavailable.
• Jesus: In recovery following a torn ACL.

⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🦅 Crystal Palace Team News:

• Doucore: Recovering from an ACL injury.
• Chadi Riad: Out with a knee injury, returning to training in a fortnight.
• Kporha: Doubtful with a back injury.

⚽ Crystal Palace Form: 🟥🟧🟥🟩🟩

⚔️ Head-to-Head:

• Arsenal 2-2 Crystal Palace (23 April 2025, Premier League)
• Crystal Palace 1-5 Arsenal (21 December 2024, Premier League)
• Arsenal 3-2 Crystal Palace (18 December 2024, EFL Cup)
• Arsenal 5-0 Crystal Palace (20 January 2024, Premier League)
• Crystal Palace 0-1 Arsenal (21 August 2023, Premier League)

📖 Match Facts:

• Crystal Palace haven’t beaten Arsenal away from home since April 2019 in a game managed by Unai Emery and Roy Hodgson. The starting lineup for Arsenal included Mustafi, Mavropanos and Jenkinson (who were both substituted at half time), Kolasinac, and Elneny… My god have we come far…
• Thomas Bramall has never refereed a game for the Arsenal Senior team in his refereeing career, but he has refereed six Crystal Palace games; they haven’t lost a single one.
• Chris Kavanagh, who is on VAR duty, famously sent off Declan Rice for kicking the ball away before a free kick before Brighton took it.

✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings

If you didn’t already, I urge you to go back and read that first match fact. Writing that sent a shiver down my spine. Imagine fielding an 11 containing those players and expecting to even break the top 4. I don’t think we fully grasped just how bad things were back then, and none of us could have imagined how far we would come.

Crystal Palace were only recently absolutely flying with a 19 game unbeaten run which saw them lift the FA Cup (which was the first major trophy in the clubs history) and the Community Shield, leading to their qualification for the Europa League (before being demoted to the Conference League, but that’s out of scope here). They became a force to be reckoned with, and nicked a point off of us at the Emirates last season in a game which saw us dominate possession but fail to take advantage of it. That unbeaten run came to an expected end against Everton a few weeks ago, just a week after the beat Liverpool. They haven’t won a game since losing their streak, but still managed to score 3 goals against Bournemouth who sit third in the league.

Arsenal will be happy with their midweek demolition of Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, but the euphoria will have worn off quickly as they returned to training to prepare to take on Crystal Palace. Gabriel is an injury doubt according to Arteta, but who can believe a word he says regarding player fitness. Even in his absence, we have Mosquera and Hincapie who are both more than capable of stepping in.

Some other notes include Gyokeres scoring a brace against Atletico Madrid; he will be riding that high in the hopes of bringing more goals for Arsenal in the Premier League. Eze faces his old club for the first time since crossing the Thames, and will be hoping that he can score for the other team this time after scoring against Arsenal for Palace in the 2-2 draw last season.