Arsenal vs Ipswich Town Preview

Arsenal will look to keep pace with Liverpool at the top of the Premier League table when they welcome Ipswich to the Emirates Stadium on Friday night.

After dropping points against Everton, the Gunners bounced back in style last weekend beating Crystal Palace 5-1 away from home to keep themselves six points behind Liverpool having played a game more. As such, they come into this round of games sitting in third position.

With 16 of the 32 teams to top the table on Christmas Day ultimately winning the title, history would suggest that Mikel Arteta’s side now have no more than a 50% chance of overthrowing Liverpool at the top of the table.

Still, Arsenal know that being top at Christmas guarantees nothing in the title race as they themselves have been top at Christmas on four occasions without winning the title.

They will want to avoid losing further ground here. However, they will have to do so without influential forward Bukayo Saka, who was forced off with an injury in Arsenal’s last game.

Despite his absence, Arsenal will still fancy their chances of winning this game at home, where they’re unbeaten this season in all competitions (W10, D3) and haven’t lost in 41 Premier League games against newly promoted sides (W36, D5).

Meanwhile, Ipswich will be desperate to bounce back when they play Arsenal. The Tractor Boys have given a good account of themselves in the Premier League so far. But a 4-0 loss at home to Newcastle United at the weekend proved that Kieran McKenna’s side still have a lot to learn.

The visitors have been fairly decent on the road, though. They’ve averaged one point per game in Premier League away matches this season as opposed to just 0.44 at home—their 0.56 differential is the biggest in the league in favour of playing away.

The Tractor Boys have also won two of their last three away league games and one of them came not too far from here, a 2-1 win at Tottenham in mid-November. Naturally, travelling to Arsenal represents a completely different proposition, highlighted by their terrible record in away H2Hs since August 1979 (W0, D4, L7).

Other fixtures taking place this week in the Premier League Fixtures:

Premier League Table