Striving to keep their Premier League title hopes alive for at least 24 hours, Arsenal’s penultimate game of the season takes them to relegation-battling Nottingham Forest on Saturday evening.
The two teams reconvene at the City Ground on the back of contrasting results last weekend, as the Gunners were humbled 3-0 by Brighton & Hove Albion while the Tricky Trees drew 2-2 with Chelsea.
Team News
Nottingham Forest
- Forest head coach Cooper would have breathed a second sigh of relief at Stamford Bridge to see no more players enter the treatment room, as the hosting manager may be working around absentees in the double figures once again.
- Dean Henderson (thigh), Chris Wood (thigh), Giulian Biancone (knee), Neco Williams (jaw), Omar Richards (calf), Scott McKenna (shoulder), Jack Colback (head) and Jonjo Shelvey (calf/internal disciplinary) are all expected to miss out once again, while Gustavo Scarpa (calf) and Emmanuel Dennis (knock) will both need once-overs in the coming days.
- Cooper’s bold decision to demote Brennan Johnson to the bench paid dividends at Stamford Bridge, and the Tricky Trees tactician should see no reason to fix what is not broken, potentially deploying a 3-5-2 setup to try to quell Arsenal’s rampant attack.
Arsenal
- Arsenal’s fitness worries are also mounting at the worst possible time, as it has been reported that Gabriel Martinelli will miss the Gunners’ final two games of the season with the ankle injury that he sustained in a challenge from Brighton’s Moises Caicedo last weekend.
- Prior to that three-goal defeat, it was also claimed that William Saliba (back) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (calf) would also sit out the remainder of the campaign – rumours that were denied by Arteta – and the latter surprisingly featured in team training last week before being ruled out alongside his fellow defender.
- Neither Saliba nor Zinchenko are expected to prove their fitness in time for Saturday, where knee victims Mohamed Elneny and Takehiro Tomiyasu will also miss out again. Despite a dissatisfactory cameo against his former club last weekend, Leandro Trossard should be first in line to displace the stricken Martinelli.
Possible Lineup
Nottingham Forest: Navas; Worrall, Niakhate, Felipe; Aurier, Yates, Danilo, Mangala, Lodi; Gibbs-White, Awoniyi
Arsenal: Ramsdale; White, Kiwior, Gabriel, Tierney; Odegaard, Xhaka, Partey; Saka, Jesus, Trossard
Prediction Analysis
The result of Saturday’s game may pale into insignificance for Arsenal if Man City can do the business against Chelsea 24 hours later, but Arteta should still get the response he is after against a leaky Forest backline.
Even with the Gunners’ morale slowly depleting, facing the title outsiders will be a different kettle of fish to a ponderous Chelsea side for Nottingham Forest, whose fight against the drop could be taken to the final day.
Our prediction is Nottingham Forest 0-2 Arsenal