Arsenal battle Southampton at St Mary’s on Saturday afternoon aiming for a ninth successive win across all competitions.
Mikel Arteta’s side continue to set the pace domestically and in Europe, with their narrow win over Leeds leaving them four points clear at the top of the Premier League after Manchester City were beaten by Liverpool at Anfield. City have since narrowed the gap to one point after their 3-1 win over Brighton on Saturday.
With just four league matches to go until the break for the World Cup, the Gunners will be desperate to maintain their superb form and go into that on a high.
As for Southampton, they ended their six-match winless run with victory over Bournemouth last time out, and they will hoping to back that up against the Gunners, who they have had some success against in recent meetings at St Mary’s.
Arsenal were beaten by the Saints towards the end of last season, as their top-four hopes began to fall apart. Che Adams scored the winner for Southampton.
What the managers say
Ralph Hasenhuttl: “Every game you win is crucial for self-belief and confidence. The first goal for us every year is to get to 40 points as quickly as possible so therefore you have to get points against every team, no matter how good they are.”
“[Arsenal] are possibly the best team in the league at the moment and are a super developed team with a lot of individual quality. But we have to have a positive mindset and at St Mary’s, we have shown we can win against teams like Arsenal and Chelsea.
Mikel Arteta: “It’s difficult as we have a day to prepare for the game. We have watched certain games, but we haven’t finalised all of the preparation because we have a training session tomorrow and they can play in various ways.
“We know what we can expect from them, but we don’t have certainty over how they will start the game.”
