Anderlecht welcome Arsenal as Gunners continue Champions League campaign

Previous Meetings

Just the two competitive meetings for the Gunners and the Belgium outfit, with a two-legged clash in the 1969/1970 Fairs Cup clash:

22^nd April 1970 – Anderlecht 3-1 Arsenal

28^th April 1970 – Arsenal 3-0 Anderlecht

Oh, did I mention that was the FINAL?! Quite the turnaround from the Gunners! What a win!

Injuries

I’m sure you’re all aware that we will have our third-choice ‘keeper Emiliano Martinez between the sticks and our sixth-choice goalkeeper Ryan Huddart on the bench, as David Ospina is injured and Wojciech Szczesny suspended.

Further to our goalkeeping absentees, we will be without quite a substantial core of our side with Jack Wilshere, Olivier Giroud, Mathieu Debuchy, Yaya Sanogo, Laurent Koscielny and Mesut Ozil also out.

Anderlecht will be without Fabrice N’Sakala.

Blazer’s Bets

Arsenal will be expected to comfortably do what is required in Belgium, so, I’m approaching this with a lot of optimism. Therefore, Arsenal to be winning at half-time and full-time with Bet Victor’s 15/8 is appealing.

For some reason, every time we play underwhelming opposition in the Champions League, I always have visions of Ashley Cole’s last-minute winner against Dynamo Kiev. Therefore, let’s throw a quid on Bet365’s 50/1 for Kieran Gibbs as first goalscorer.

Predictions

Emiliano Martinez to have a performance that David Seaman would be proud of until the 89^th minute, where he then has an absolute nightmare and ruins his clean-sheet. However, the error doesn’t cost Arsenal badly as the Gunners ease to a comfortable 4-1 victory in Belgium thanks to goals from Kieran Gibbs, Danny Welbeck and an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain brace.