Arsenal head to the south coast to play an out of form Southampton side, who haven’t won since beating Sunderland away back in early November. With Liverpool beating Leicester one nil earlier today, this game represents a great opportunity for Arsenal to go a point clear at the top of the English Premier League. Arsenal convincingly beat Manchester City on Monday and are now favourites to win the Premier League.

The last game of a full schedule of Boxing Day Premier League action, Arsene Wenger will be keen to make sure his side capitalise on their recent form which includes five victories in their last six matches in all competitions. Arsenal tend to come good around the turn of the year, and in Oliver Giroud, and Mesut Ozil they have two players in top form. Even if David Moyles thinks the jury’s still out, I think this season has demonstrated what a high calibre player Mesut Ozil can be. Ozil has provided 15 assists this season, and is ranked 7^th when compared to the collective assist totals for all Premier League teams. Ozil seems to revel when he is accompanied by the running power of Aaron Ramsey and Theo Walcott in the team, and I would be confident of Arsenal creating a good number of chances in this game.

Southampton have managed to find themselves in the unfortunate position of scoring few goals and conceding far too many at the other end. Southampton have traditionally been good for goals, and in Ronald Koeman, the Saints have a manager who demands attacking football. The game will be the evening televised game with a full crowd, and I fully expect to see an open attacking encounter with both sides trying out score the other. BetVictor offer 14/5 on over 3.5 goals, which is more than worth a flutter. Arsenal look in the mood to score goals at the moment and Boxing Day has often been a day when they have delivered in that respect.

Petr Cech needs just one more clean sheet to move ahead of David James for Premier League clean sheets. Cech is currently on 169 clean sheets, and you wouldn’t bet against that tally improving substantially before the end of the season. For this game though, I do fancy goals and would expect Southampton to score, and therefore see backing both teams to score and the Arsenal win at 19/5 best priced with Stan James as my other bet. In short I expect attacking play and goals!

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