Arsenal-vs-Monaco

Arsenal vs Monaco

Prediction

Arsenal vs Monaco – Arsenal to win it 2-0

Monaco’s tactic will be simple, Sit back and defend and try to break on the counter. They’ve been successfully doing it all season and will be confident of doing it again at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal has started finding their feet this season and will be confident of breaking their four year long curse of not going past the round of 16’s of this competition.

 Arsenal

Olivier-Giroud-will-lead-Arsenal's-line-against-Monaco

Olivier Giroud will lead Arsenal’s line against Monaco (BBC)

Arsenal come into this match on the back of an important 2-1 over Crystal Palace in the weekend that helped them move up to 3rd in the Premier League. Cazorla and Giroud were the scorers for Arsenal in their win. It was their 5th League victory in the last 6 league matches so in short – they are in really good form!

Arsenal qualified for the Champions League round of 16 after finishing as runners-up in their group behind Borussia Dortmund on the basis of Goal Difference.

Arsenal has a long injury list which includes the likes of Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Mathieu Debuchy, Abou Diaby and Aaron Ramsey. Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain is unlikely to be risked for this match.

Arsenal have been knocked out at this stage of the competition for the last four seasons, twice by Bayern and one time each by AC Milan and Barcelona.

This will be the first time that Arsenal with face off against AS Monaco in a competitive match.

 

AS Monaco

Monaco's-leading-goal-scorer-this-season-(BBC)

Monaco’s leading goal scorer this season (BBC)

Monaco comes into this match on the back of a 1-0 win over Nice in Ligue 1 football. Bernardo Silva scored the lone goal for the Monaco that gave them the win. They remain 4th in Ligue One with one game in hand compared to their rivals.

Monaco has conceded the least amount of goals in the Ligue with just 19. Dimitar Berbatov has been their top scorer in all competitions with just 6 goals.

Monaco qualified for the Champions League round of 16’s by topping their group having conceded only one goal in 6 matches but their problem lies in scoring goals and just managed 4 goals in 6 champions matches and have scored only 26 in 25 Ligue 1 matches.

Monaco did beat Arsenal previously this season beating the English side 1-0 but it was just a Pre-Season Friendly.

Monaco similar to Arsenal has a long list of injured players which include Jeremy Toulalan, Tiemou Bakayoko, Andrea Raggi and Ricardo Carvalho. Layvin Kurzawa and Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco are also likely to miss the game.

Past Meeting

These two teams have never met in a competitive match till date but did play against each other in a Pre-Season friendly – The Emirates Cup in August 2014 that was won by Monaco 1-0 with the lone goal by Radamel Falcao.

Content Usage:
Photos and videos featured on this post are used under a creative commons license, free to use and edit – Wikipedia Commons www.commons.wikimedia.org and Youtube permission to feature under its TOS.