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Southampton vs Arsenal: Can Saints advance past Gunners?

By Ryan Borowski

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 16: Bukayo Saka of Arsenal gets away from Oriol Romeu of Southampton during the Premier League match between Arsenal and Southampton at Emirates Stadium on December 16, 2020 in London, England. The match will be played without fans, behind closed doors as a Covid-19 precaution. (Photo by Peter Cziborra - Pool/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 16: Bukayo Saka of Arsenal gets away from Oriol Romeu of Southampton during the Premier League match between Arsenal and Southampton at Emirates Stadium on December 16, 2020 in London, England. The match will be played without fans, behind closed doors as a Covid-19 precaution. (Photo by Peter Cziborra - Pool/Getty Images) /
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Southampton will take on Arsenal this Saturday in the FA Cup and Ralph has promised to field a strong team this Saturday.

This will be the second time this season the two clubs have met in all competitions and it will be a tough task for the Saints as this Arsenal team is playing much better than they were earlier in the season.

What adds another dynamic to this match is that the two clubs turn around and will play each other in the Leauge on the following Tuesday.

So let us take a look at how both teams could win this match.

How Southampton Will Win

The Saints just took on Shrewsbury this week to advance to this stage of the cup and featured a squad with a ton of youth. That will not be the case this Saturday as Hasenhuttl has promised to feature a strong side as they look to make a run and gain momentum by beating Arsenal.

The key to the match will be can the Saints start scoring again. They did score two earlier this week but that was against Shrewsbury (no offense) and you have to go back to the 13th of December to find the last time they scored more than 1 in a Premier League match.

Danny Ings did miss a majority of those matches but he cannot score every goal for the club and they will need to find the goals from somewhere else. This will be a good test for the club and as Danny Ings is likely to feature he will need help.

I think if Southampton can get back to pressing high up the pitch and striking quickly from those turnovers I think they can grab a couple of goals and likely go through to the next round.

How Arsenal Will Win

Really the Gunners will just need to keep doing what they have been doing. They have started to get into the goals again and the defense has been solid over the past two weeks. Granted, they did play some weaker sides but confidence can go a long way.

It will be interesting to see which match they choose to focus more on but now that they are up on the table they may think about trying to make a cup run. I suspect they will play two very strong sides in both matches against Southampton thinking if they can win both that can catapult them into a hot start for the second half of the season.

I think this match will look a lot like the first time these two sides met and if they do not get a red card early in the second half they will like their chances of winning on Saturday.

Next. Release Clause causing hang-up for Ings. dark

Predicted Line-ups

Southampton: 4-2-2-2

Goalkeeper: Fraser Forster

Defenders: Kyle Walker-Peters, Jan Bednarek, Jack Stephens, Ryan Bertrand

Midfielders: James Ward-Prowse, Ibrahima Diallo

Attacking Midfielders: Stuart Armstrong, Theo Walcott

Strikers: Che Adams, Danny Ings

Arsenal: 4-2-3-1

Goalkeeper: Bernd Leno

Defenders: Cedric, David Luiz, Rob Holding, Kieran Tierney

Midfielders: Joe Willock, Mohamed Elney

Attacking Midfielders: Nicolas Pepe, Emile Smith-Rowe, Willian

Striker: Alexandre Lacazette

Southampton 1-2 Arsenal

At the end of the day, I am not convinced Southampton have figured out their attack. I think this goes to extra time where Arsenal will find a winner.

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