
Imagine Robben running down the right cutting inside Monreal, poking it to Lewandowski who tries a first time shot which is saved by Ospina’s legs, Koscielny takes a swing at the ball to clear but it hits Muller and bounces around before Bellerin cleans up, playing it inside to Mustafi who plays it on to Xhaka, Xhaka passes in between Alonso and Vidal to Oxlade-Chamberlain who bursts past the outstretched leg of Thiago Alcântara. Sprinting up field, Ox plays it wide to Ozil who swings inside on his left and slides a ball into Welbeck who bursts into the box and cuts it back to Alexis who thumps it high past Neuer to make it 3-0

It’s not so much the personnel but the way we approach the game that will be key. Arsene has spoken about the need to be united and show we are a strong unit, words won’t make that happen, the players on the pitch will have to back up the manager and fight for the club on the pitch. A bad result would be another huge blow for the confidence of the team in such a critical period in the season. It looks like a straight out fight for the places under Chelsea and a bad run of form from any team will slam a massive dent into their chances

This is pretty much judgement day when it comes to any hopes of lifting the Premier League title. Lose the game today and the gap between Arsenal and Chelsea will be 12 points, that will be pretty much insurmountable. Beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and the lead is cut down to 6 which would still be extremely difficult given some of the away fixtures we have left this season but you just never know. Victory against the side top of the league could inject this side with some unshakable confidence and you know what Arsene’s teams are like with a big fat dose of super belief. Yeah not the complacency stuff by the way, I mean the stuff that the invincibles had by the bucket load

I hope we fly out of the traps as we did at Southampton and given how much Arsenal are creatures of habit, I think that is ex`actly how we will approach the game tonight. At the start of the season we were quite front footed and it is only in recent weeks we have begun to start games slowly only to turn up the heat in the second half. I do wonder if some of that is by design to some extent. Arsene is big on the last twenty minutes of games and you can see that with his substitution methods. How many times has he said post matches that ‘we took over when they became tired’

It gives Arsene a few decisions to make before kick off. We expect Burnley to come and sit back and attempt to stop us from playing/scoring so if sharp and fully fit, I’d like to see Kieran Gibbs come back into the team for this game, I would imagine that both of our full backs will be pretty advanced which will allow Alexis to play much closer to Giroud assuming he starts

Who is Arsene going to drop? Alex Iwobi was one of our better players at Preston, including a poor first half from the team. He looks like he is on the way up again, does Arsene put the breaks on that rise? Lucas Perez has given us some massive contributions in the box in the last two games. Without him we may have lost both matches. And what of Giroud? It’s a funny one for me. I share the opinion that we are a more fluid and creative team with Alexis playing as our centre forward, Giroud is a great option from the bench etc. But he is fresher than most in the squad and is banging in goals for fun

Attentions quickly turn to the FA cup this afternoon, maybe a breather from the Premier League might be a good idea after that quite frankly crazy game at Bournemouth a few days ago. Like most new years resolutions, it did’t take me long to break mine did it? I wanted to express my thoughts on that game but couldn’t find the needed time to do so. It’s probably for the best though as I am not quite sure how my jumbled up brain would have translated that into words

Given that both Coquelin and Ramsey did not start the game on Sunday, it would be safe to suggest that they are likely to start but that brings about plenty of questions. Would Arsene rest Xhaka so he could fit Ramsey, Coquelin and Iwobi in the midfield? I doubt it, especially as Xhaka was so pivotal to our performance on Sunday. I can’t see Arsene moving Iwobi from number 10, even if he is a more natural fit on the flank than Aaron Ramsey is. Not to mention the Coq/Ramsey struggles as a two man midfield base

So the predictions for Oliver Giroud to start once more makes some sort of sense, even if I wasn’t convinced before kick off in our last match. There were complaints that we did not play wide attackers in that game but when you look at where both Gibbs and Bellerin played, they spent far more time running at their opposite numbers than defending, so we could witness more of the same today but this time they will have more to think about the other way as Palace have a number of quick counter attacking players such as Zaha and Townsend

Regardless of how this match finishes up, it has all the ingredients to be an entertaining and attacking game of football. Fingers crossed we can bounce back from the midweek defeat and I hope City struggle without their missing players. A victory at Manchester City would be just the tonic but let’s make no mistake, missing players or not, Manchester City away is a very tough game no matter which 11 they field