Arsenal will face Crystal Palace in a London derby on Monday night at Selhurst Park with both teams eyeing a win.
The two capital clubs scraped slender wins on the opening day of the 2023/2024 Premier League campaign, with Arsenal beating Nottingham Forest 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium and Crystal Palace defeating Sheffield United 1-0 at Bramall Lane.
Having started the season with a victory over newcomers Sheffield United, Palace will face a massive test from Mikel Arteta-led Arsenal side that narrowly lost the league title to Manchester City last season after maintaining lead for most part of the campaign.
Though, despite a dominant first-half display, Arsenal weren’t especially convincing in their home win against Forest. They enjoyed an extremely comfortable opening 45 minutes, thanks to goals from Eddie Nketiah and Bukayo Saka, which put them 2-0 up at the break. Both Nketiah – who’ll likely retain his starting spot with Gabriel Jesus still out – and Saka now have a chance to become the first English player since Ian Wright in 1997 to score in both of Arsenal’s first two games of a Premier League season.
Mikel Arteta’s side played a dominant display of the ball in the first-half, compared to any first half of a Premier League game last season. They turned that into seven shots to Forest’s one as a routine home win looked on the cards.
They stumbled after the break though, in a second half marred by a knee injury to new signing Jurriën Timber. It’ll likely sideline him for the majority of the season, and Arteta will hope Oleksandr Zinchenko is fit enough to come in to replace him for this one.
Nigerian international Taiwo Awoniyi made things nervous for Arsenals’ fans with a late strike, but the home team ended up clinging to a one-goal victory.
Roy Hodgson will have a change of mood from last week, when the atmosphere was much more subdued due to the potential departure of Michael Olise. Chelsea activated the forward’s release clause but soon made a U-turn and signed a new four-year deal to stay at Selhurst Park.
The Frenchman, who is currently recovering from a thigh injury, registered 11 assists and scored twice last season.
An unblemished start to the season will end for one of these sides this Monday night.
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