There are numerous story lines surrounding Sunday’s headliner Premier League fixture, which sees Manchester United hosting Arsenal. First off is obviously the Arsene Wenger farewell tour, and his final clash against his greatest arch-nemesis, Jose Mourinho.
Then you have the fact that both teams, while needing this game to secure important positioning in the Premier League table, are also both focused on cup competitions, and thus securing their first and only trophy of the season.
Sunday also presents Alexis Sanchez with an opportunity to face his former team. Henrikh Mkhitaryan may or may not get the same chance as he faces a late fitness test.
Ahead of this match, Sanchez told MUTV that he believes United have more history than Arsenal.
In other words, there’s a whole lot going on in this one. With Thursday night’s big Europa League clash with Atletico Madrid, Wenger will have to rest a lot of his players, and thus will rotate his squad in this one.
Without further ado, here is our Arsenal starting XI prediction (4-3-3)
Goalkeeper- David Ospina
Defenders- Calum Chambers, Shkodran Mustafi, Rob Holding, Sead Kolasinac
Midfielders- Granit Xhaka, Joe Willock, Jack Wilshere
Forwards- Mesut Ozil, Alex Iwobi, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
United FC Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Both manager press conferences: coming tomorrow
Injury and fitness report for both teams: go to this link
Odds via Odds Checker: United 6/13, Draw 50/13, Arsenal FC 15/2
Prediction: United 2, Arsenal FC 1
As always, feel free to post your own starting XI predictions for both teams, and well as your final score predictions
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.