ENGLISH PREMIER BETTING PICK - ARSENAL V SUNDERLAND

English Premier

2010-02-20 - Arsenal vs Sunderland

A Sports Betting Pick by Addicted

Arsenal V Sunderland
Football : England : Premier League
Saturday 20th February 2010 - Kickoff 3pm

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It's never straightforward with these Gunners, eh? After battling their way to within 6 points of leaders Chelsea, they put on an embarrassingly horrific display in Portugal to lose 2-1. Bad luck aside, Arsenal need to stop habitually shooting themselves in the foot.

This game surely is a must win situation if Arsenal are to entertain even the slightest thoughts of Premiership glory.

Arsenal

With Chelsea facing an easy game at Wolves, Arsenal really need to now take advantage of a string of easy fixtures against the bottom sides.

A lot has been made of the shambolic defence in Portugal on Wednesday night, but closer examination shows that it really was just those two massive errors by the reserve goalkeeper Fabianski. The first goal came when Fabianski went down on a low relatively safe cross and pushed it into the net.

For the second, he collected a ball that had brushed defender Campbell. While that was silly, he then turned into a nervous wreck and immediately gave the ball back and turned around, allowing Porto to cleverly pull an Henry on him with no wall in place.

While this is unfortunate, it is not a disaster. The team will no doubt address this issue and will have had more than enough time to settle down and refocus on a Sunderland side that is quite frankly abysmal away from home.

Fabianski will remain in goal, and I would expect a much better performance from him at the Emirates. Although slower than one would like, Campbell hasn't given me any reason to doubt his partnership with Vermaelen against a suspect Sunderland attack.

While Van Persie remains out, there is a chance of Eduardo playing up front if he recovers in time. Bendtner, Walcott, Nasri, Rosicky and Vela will all provide Wenger with options, and it seems like Arshavin might be good to return to the team too, having stayed in London during the week.

Captain Cesc Fabregas had some very strong and critical words about his team after the midweek match, and I doubt there is a fan out there that would disagree with him. The club is under great leadership, and I have no doubt they will put things behind them and give us the performance we expect.

Sunderland

Sunderland began their season in record fashion, but it's all gone down the toilet recently. The "Black Cats" have slipped to 13th and will surely sink lower over the following weeks if they don't pull their fingers out and fashion some sort of change in current form.

The Tyneside outfit have now gone an eyepopping 12 games without a win, losing half those fixtures. That's just 6 points picked up from a possible 36.

Few would stick money on them adding to that tally at the fortress that is Arsenal's Emirates, seeing as they've won away only once, at Bolton on opening day back in August, and lost nine times on the road since.

But, lets look at some positives. One positive actually. Darren Bent is fit, and will be in the team that visits Arsenal. The striker has managed to score against all the top 4 clubs, no mean feat in itself, and is in fact responsible for netting half of Sunderlands 32 goals this season.

Jones will partner him up front and IF the Black Cats are to score, I should imagine it will be Bent who probably gets it (priced at 4.00 at Bet365). Sadly though for the visitors, Steve Bruce's defence is still one that is likely to give up at least a couple of goals to an Arsenal side looking to vent their frustrations.

The Betting Verdict :

You can see where I'm going with this preview, Sunderland have low confidence, zero momentum, and but a vague memory of what it actually feels like to win. That is the reality that is Sunderland football club.

The visitors are there for the taking, so I'm going to look past that 1-0 upset of Arsenal much earlier in the season, and ignore the little voice in my head insisting Arsenal and their trio of shaky keepers find a way to make life difficult for themselves yet again.

Surely the pieces come together on Saturday and Arsenal and their North London faithful return home singing.

The Statistics :

BEST BETTING TIP :

Consider Arsenal & Chelsea for a weekend banker double (read: kiss of death) at 1.60 (Bet365)


Sunderland fans, you could do a lot worse than sticking a couple of quid on the ridiculous 17.00 prices widely available, perhaps even a double with Bent to score. But, like Porto, you'll surely need help from the man between the Arsenal posts.

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