ARSENE Wenger has seen his side blow too many points in the north of England to rest on his laurels as his Gunners head to Wigan tonight, but there is no value in backing Arsenal to take all three points at 8/15.
Victory at home to Chelsea on Monday has pushed Arsenal back into the championship race, at least for now, but the hard fought 3-1 victory over their London rivals will fade in importance if it is not backed up with a win against lowly Wigan. Arsenal are three points behind Manchester United with both teams having played 18 games, and success tonight would push Arsenal up into at least second, ahead of Manchester City on goal difference.
With the highly congested fixture list, Arsene Wenger is expected to rotate his squad tonight, but that will not cause much relief to Wigan. Cesc Fabregas misses the game with a suspension, but Arshavin and Chamakh should have enough quality to break the home defence down. Arsenal defeated Wigan 2-0 at the Emirates in the League Cup back in November in a game where Wigan failed to ever really cause the hosts serious problems.
Arsenal will also have demons to exercise at the DW Stadium after last season’s dramatic 3-2 defeat, where the Gunners blew a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go. However, despite their reputation for struggling away from home against the more physical sides in the Premier League, Arsenal have not travelled badly this season. Prior to their limp 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford in a game that seemed to over awe some of the young Arsenal players, they had won 4-2 at Aston Villa, 2-1 at Everton, 2-0 at Wolves, 3-0 at Manchester City, drew 1-1 at Sunderland (only conceding in stoppage time) and won 2-1 at Blackburn.
Wigan themselves will be buoyed by their own previous result, as they held on to win against fellow relegation candidates Wolves 2-1. It was a game that Wigan deserved to win, but Wolves were abject in front of their own fans and would have lost to plenty of other teams by playing as they did. However, Roberto Martinez has his team on a three-match unbeaten run (their lost loss v Arsenal in the League Cup) after that win and draws against Everton and Stoke. Wigan’s home record against the top (and supposed top) teams also makes decent reading – they drew 1-1 with Liverpool, 1-1 with 6th placed Bolton and 1-1 with Sunderland. A 6-0 home loss verses Chelsea seems a long time ago now for a team who have conceded more than two goals in a game only once since that thrashing – going down 3-1 in an early season six-pointer against West Ham at Upton Park.
Maynor Figueroa and Hendry Thomas are both set to return for Wigan after missing the win at Wolves, and with the chance remaining that this could be a case of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’ for Arsenal, they are best avoided at 8/15. However, bwin are an absolute standout 29/20 about an Arsenal half time/full time double result. The bet would have come in on 6 out of Arsenal’s 9 away games to date, and that total would have been even higher if not for Sunderland’s last ditch equaliser at the Stadium of Light. The value here is with the Arsenal double result, as while they might not put Wigan entirely to the sword tonight, they should be able to get the job done.
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Arsenal HALFTIME/FULLTIME (29/20 @ bwin)
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