Big Game Focus: Arsenal v BATE Barisov

Arsenal will be hoping to turn things around after they disappointingly lost the first leg away to BATE Barisov in the Europa League first knock out stage. Bet on the match here.

Things did not go according to plan for the Gunners last week. However, the hosts had other ideas in mind as they fought to come out with a narrow 1-0 win in front of their own fans. Basically it was a bad night for Unai Emery and his charges, though if we look at their performance, then it’s fair to say that they were unlucky to lose.

The visitors are punching way above their weight here and their attacking threat is limited to breaking on the counter. They will need more than luck to get something out of this fixture especially now that Arsenal will have their fans behind them.

This promises to be an interesting match and Arsenal will be out to attack from the very onset.

Betting preview

Arsenal have won three of their last five fixtures in the Europa League and they are fancied to win against their lowly ranked opponents. You can back a -1 Handicap Home Win at odds of 1.45 here.

The Gunners have given very little away defensively when playing at home in the group stages of this competition. As a matter of fact they only conceded in one of their three games at the Emirates. Therefore backing a Home Win to Nil promises value at odds of 1.60.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is Arsenal’s leading top goalscorer with 15 goals to his name this season in all competitions. He is set to start upfront seeing that Alexander Lacazette is suspended and he makes an excellent punt for the Anytime Goalscorer at odds of 1.55.

Team news

Lacazette is suspended for Arsenal after being sent off in the first leg and is set to miss out alongside Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey who are doubtful. Meanwhile Denis Suarez will be hoping to make his full Arsenal debut in midweek.

The visitors are expected to make no changes to the side that beat Arsenal last week. Aleksandr Hleb will have an emotional moment to feature in the second leg against his former club.

Possible line ups

Arsenal: Cech, Maitland-Niles, Mustafi, Koscielny, Kolasinac, Guendouzi, Xhaka, Suarez, Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang, Iwobi.

BATE Barisov: Scherbitsky, Rios, Volkov, Filipenko, Filipovic, Baga, Dragun, Hleb, Milic, Skavysh, Stasevic.