Arsenal vs Birmingham – Premier League 

Game of the 8th round of the Premier League where the Arsenal, 4th placed of the League will receive in the Emirates Stadium the 16th placed of the league the team of Birmingham.

Arsenal

Arsenal is not having the best moments in Premier League, before the pause for International Games the team lost two straight games and their chances of get the title have been reduced and they are now 7 points behind the leader Chelsea with the same points that Tottenham. Is true that these seven points aren’t impossible to recover, but if we compare both teams we can easily understand what I mean.

The team of Wenger is a team that playing at home against more weak opponents is very strong, but that didn’t avoid that West Bromwich get a huge victory of 3 – 2 in Emierates in a game where they were always in the control of the game. In this beginning of season Arsenal has a home record of two victories, and one loss with 12 goals scored and 4 goals suffered.

The big problem of Arsenal in my opinion is the defense and their goal keeper that isn’t in the same level of the other players. The team only get two wins in ten games without suffering any goal and comes to this game with two straight losses.

Is true that this team of Arsenal has some players injured and the last one is the french defender Bakary Sagna, while Van Persie and Vermaelan are still out. On the other side Fabregas, Walcott and Bendtner are back on the team.

Birmingham

The team of Birmingham City lost recently their 12 months invencibility record at home against Everton with a 0 – 2 lost, so the pressure for the team of McCleish is going to increase. A lot expect that Birmingham achieve a place at the middle of the table because of the success of the last season, but the recent results show that this may be a very hard season for Birmingham.

Alex McCleish saw his team falling to the 17th place of the League with 7 points in 7 games and the team is having lots of trouble to score goals, particularly at home, because away from home they have been in good plan with 0 victories, 2 draws and 1 defeat with 5 goals scored and 7 suffered.

The success of this team in last season was due to a great defense, with a lot of 1 – 0 victories, especialy at home, so in last season this was a very hard team to score goals. This season that is not happening with the team suffering goals in 7 of their 9 games.

Their best scorer of this season Craig Gardner is not going to play because he is suspended, while James McFadden will also be out with an injury.

Probable Starting line up:

Arsenal : Fabiansky ; Eboue, Squilacci, Koscielny, Clichy ; Song, Diaby, Fábregas ; Nasri, Arshavin e Chamakh
Manager: Arsene Wenger

Birmingham : Foster ; Carr, Dann, Jonhson, Ridgewell ; Fergunson, Bowyer, Fahey, Hleb, Larsson ; Jerome
Manager: Alex McCleish

Conclusion

The return of Cesc Fábregas gives the team an extra motivation, there is still a little bit of concern about his physical state, bue Wenger is happy for having more options.

On the other hand, Birmingham needs quickly of a good result to avoid the dangerous zone, something they have been able to do for two seasons. They only get one victory this season and they are not so strong defensively like last season.

Despite the fact that Arsenal lost 2 – 0 against Chelsea in the last game, Wenger was happy for the performance of his team, but this time he wants a good victory and Arsenal use to play well at home and with the return of some major players like Fabregas, Walcott and Bendtner I expect that they can improve their game. It’s possible that Birmingham score some goal, but they will for sure suffer some.