Fresh from a 5 goal hammering of West Ham, Arsenal must go into this one in confident mood. With just one loss all season they are at the top end of the league and have Chelsea within their sights. Of course, there is still just over half the season to go and plenty of football to be played but Arsenal will be in that title discussion in my opinion.
Stoke have more humble plans. They won’t be thinking about relegation, they’re too good for that but equally, they don’t have their eyes on the title. Instead, they’ll be looking to push on and trying to qualify for one of the Europa League spots, maybe through a cup.
Arsenal and Stoke do of course have “history”. Many football fans will remember the broken leg suffered by Aaron Ramsey a few years ago. Relations between these two clubs have not been friendly since and there have been some exciting matches between the two in recent years.
There have been two 3-3 draws in the last 3 seasons and 18 goals scored in matches between these two in the same time period. That doesn’t always work out, though. These two played out a 0-0 draw in January of this year.
Not that I can see the same thing happening this time. Arsenal are in fine goal scoring form and Sanchez, Walcott and Özil have scored more goals between them than all of Stokes players combined (21 to 16).
Odds are predictably low for an Arsenal victory, about the best you can get is 1.36 with Pinnacle and I’m not going to go that low on this one. Over 2.5 goals is also low, the average odds are around 1.45 and the best I can find on the market is 1.49, somewhere else to be avoided in my book.
There are a couple of bets I’m chewing over right now. The first is in the Asian Handicap market with Arsenal -1.5 available at 2.03 with Green Listed Bookmaker Pinnacle. With their current form I do think this is achievable so this is a real contender at anything above evens.
Perhaps of more interest though is my second selection where I’m going for Over 1.5 goals in the first half. This one is riskier but I do think it could come off and at 2.19 with SBOBet then I’m happy to take that risk.
I don’t see this being a cagey technical match as that wouldn’t suit Stoke and would play right into Arsenals strengths, instead, I can see both sides going at each other and a few goals being scored. As long as 2 or more of those goals come in the first half then I’ll be happy.
Calculators
