Hello and how are you? The 3rd of January 2026 sees the Mighty Cannon make a visit to the south coast of England to do battle with Bournemouth AFC at the Vitality stadium. KO is at 5.30pm (UK time) and expected weather is partly cloudy with temps of 1° ( feels like -6° ).
So, the Arsenal go south after a rousing defeat of top-of the table challengers, Aston Villa. A victory which gave everybody a glimmer of what could be, come May. However, until then it’s a tough climb up the north face of our Premier League mountain scramble for the summit, and we start at basecamp 1 against Bournemouth. As George pointed out in the last preview, the longer we lead the pack, the more massive each game becomes, and although the Villa game gave us a bit of a swagger its important to concentrate on each game as it comes and not start dreaming of frolics in Maytime?
The Cherries are no wins in ten, although they made an impressive draw with Chelsea last time out, but Ben Gannon-Doak (thigh), Veljko Milosavljevic (knee), Tyler Adams (knee) are all AWOL and the big question mark hangs over Antoine Semenyo (transfer? could be his last game?), Lewis Cook (neck), Ryan Christie (knee).
Declan looks like he will sit this one out too ( but the Villa game underlined the depth and quality of our squad?), also Riccardo Calafiori and Cristhian Mosquera will also be absent, as will Max Dowman. Gabriel Magalhaes (cramp), I’m sure will be back, as really, he was just listening to the Cramps. And who can blame him?
Although still hung-over from their New Years party, the boys at Statto HQ handed over the facts and figures: Bournemouth have been given a 15.9% chance of winning and the Arsenal 63.4 %. Next up, we entertain our old pals Liverpool at Ashburton Grove for the late fixture on the 9th of January. So COYG!
Mills
Uther than the front 3 I would expect the same starting line up from the Villa game. It would be easy to go with Trossard and Sake again, but I feel they could be on the bench as “finishers”. Jesus and Havertz will need some minutes, so maybe we could see them sharing the 90?. I wouldn’t like to wager much on the reality of my opinion mind. The line up will tell us quite a bit about what rotation we might see from here on in. I “hope” our great squad strength is used for more than just cover for injuries, nut we will see.
Enjoy the game friends.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Good preview lads,
As the set of fixures during Christmas week were brought forward, this is the original game week 19 and so we haven’t faced bournemouth.
As the lads have eluded every game is now massive and each one will have its own reasons.
We are the sort of side who the cherries are designed to maximize themselves against. Last season they beat us twice and typically their last few performances have been better recently. I think city will want there new signing to play against us to make our life as difficult as possible.
Our away form has not brilliant this season and so this game will be a real test. Mikel doesn’t really do rotation in the league and so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the same eleven start today.
The ref is high on the average booking list and loves giving penalties so we need to be extra careful on the break.
We have to he careful yes, but we have so many weapons to hurt the cherries and if we score first and early then their game plan is compromised. Whoever plays plus the bench this is a great opportunity to put pressure on city.
We can start to become stable and dynamic COYG.
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Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie, Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard, Madueke, Martinelli, Gyokeres.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, White, Lewis-Skelly, Norgaard, Merino, Eze, Saka, Trossard, Jesus
Havertz left out of the squad due to load management, which is odd seeing as he was an unused sub midweek
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Aston Villa up to 2nd with a win v Nottingham Forest who are right in the relegation mix,
Wolves got their first win of the season, 3-0 over west ham who are in awful form.
Burnley lost again too.
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Gabriel fucks up and Bournemouth take the lead, calamity.
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Gabrielllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll makes up for his blunder to make it 1-1 with a good finish after another good run by Madueke
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the Gabriel goal
https://x.com/i/status/2007509977813143797
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this is not good so far from us.
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HT: Bournemouth 1-1 Arsenal
Gabriel with our goal after he blundered to give them the lead.
We’ve not been good at all, far too sloppy with our passing, not enough energy in our play.
Martinelli and Gyokeres not in the game at all.
Need to be much better in the second half
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Riceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee makes it 2-1 to the Arsenal, great finish
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the Rice goal
https://x.com/i/status/2007524003926409319
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Saka, Jesus and Trossard on
Madueke, Gyokeres and Martinelli off
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Rice Rice baby, 3-1 to the Arsenal, Saka with the assist
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for fucks sake Bournemouth pull a goal back, 2-3
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Bournemouth full of energy now.
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Odegaard off
Merino on
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we are into six minutes of stoppage time
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Phew! Arsenal love testing their fans nerves! But on we go! COYG!
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FT: AFC Bournemouth 2-3 Arsenal
Gabriel and Rice x2 with our goals to put us 6 points clear at the top of the table. But oh boy was that hard work. We are not playing in any way freely.
no minutes for Eze again.
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the second Rice goal
https://x.com/i/status/2007534318135251277
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as things stand we need a maximum of 17 wins and a draw to win the EPL
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our next game is at home to Liverpool next Thursday.
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We are not playing like a championship winning side at the moment. The media will say we are not at our best and still finding a way to win but I think its more like we have a squad of amazing players who will be able to beat most teams.
Since the draw at Sunderland at the start of November we have only kept two clean sheets and have not controlled any game. We have been good in patches and even great for thirty minutes against villa but never really controlled any game for two months.
Today when we got to three-one, we should have been in full control. Instead we hoof the ball, Peter Kay style, up the field where we haven’t got anyone to retain the ball and it just invites more pressure.
Gyorkeres should have stayed on today because he permanently occupies several defenders and he is defensively sound. Jesus scored a wonderful goal last week but was not the right player for today.
We need to learn about end game management and how to strangle the life out of an opposition when we are in front coming towards the end of a game.
That doesn’t mean not attacking but to think about best outcome decision making including decisive breakaways which at the moment we are awful at.
We are top of our domestic and European league and have a fantastic squad but we still need to improve to bring home silverware.
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