Arsenal v Leicester, the boycott game. The score and who’s playing with no one watching

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Untold Arsenal is fully backing the campaign supported by AISA – the Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association to protest as best we can against the charging of £14.95 for supporters to watch today’s game against Leicester on Sky.

We’ll be following it on Arsenal.com assuming  they have their normal commentary running, or failing that on the radio.

But of course it is important to know about those jolly chaps who will be running around a lot during the match – I speak of course of the journalists who are let into the ground, and who after imbibing somewhat will be hobbling over to the toilets.

And then there are the players.  What of them?

Willian and Dani Ceballos didn’t play against Rapid Vienna so might well play today, and Thomas Partey might start his first League match. We imagine The Athletic will be watching what we have to say, having followed up our piece on Ozil using the law to force a move away from Arsenal, with a piece on Ozil using the law to force a move away from Arsenal.

The BBC suggests we will win 2-1.

Between 11 February 1995 and 11 August 2017 Arsenal and Leicester played each other 22 times and we didn’t lose a single game.   Since then it has not been so good…

Date	Game	Res	Score	Competition
09 May 2018	Leicester City v Arsenal	L	3-1	Premier League
22 Oct 2018	Arsenal v Leicester City	W	3-1	Premier League
28 Apr 2019	Leicester City v Arsenal	L	3-0	Premier League
09 Nov 2019	Leicester City v Arsenal	L	2-0	Premier League
07 Jul 2020	Arsenal v Leicester City	D	1-1	Premier League
23 Sep 2020	Leicester City v Arsenal	W	0-2	League Cup

But as the BBC point out if we just look at the home games, we have had a run of 20 wins and seven draws in the last 27 games.  Before that we had a previous run of poor results.  But the run was short, and we can imagine that negative run is now over.

Date	Game	Res	Score	Competition
8 Sep 1973	Arsenal v Leicester City	L	0-2	Division One
29 Dec 1973	Leicester City v Arsenal	L	2-0	Division One
17 Aug 1974	Leicester City v Arsenal	W	0-1	Division One
10 Sep 1974	Arsenal v Leicester City	D	1-1	League Cup
18 Sep 1974	Leicester City v Arsenal	L	2-1	League Cup

Anyway we haven’t lost a League home game this calendar year and have only drawn two, since we lost to Chelsea on 29 December last year.

We also tend to score at home these days.  In the last 73 home games we have only failed to score three times – and never against Leicester.  We also haven’t lost a home league game in October for 18 years.  (Again, the BBC found that one.  It really is quite clever.

Leicester on the other hand like losing lose three consecutive league matches.  They did it last in February last year – and then sacked their manager.  And they have never ever never won their opening three away games in the league.   Oh yes and Brenda Rodgers never beats us on our turf either.

So the teams…

Sky Money, in spite of wanting to charge us huge amounts of money to watch, are not giving us a probable line up on their site.    But 90 min do oblige with

Leno;

Bellerin, Luiz, Gabriel, Tierney;

Partey, Xhaka, Saka;

Pepe, Lacazette, Aubameyang.

BT Sport have on their website “Live: Arsenal v Leicester City | Premier League | BT Sport Teams. The team lineups will be available an hour before kick-off. Check back then to see who’s playing.”  Click on that link and you are told “Arsenal 1 – 1 Leicester City .”  So the BT time machine eh?

The Standard suggests

Leno;

Luiz, Gabriel, Tierney; Bellerin,

Partey, Xhaka, Maitland-Niles;

Willian, Lacazette, Aubameyang

Sports Keeda suggests

Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, David Luiz, Gabriel, Kieran Tierney;

Dani Ceballos, Thomas Partey, Bukayo Saka;

Willian, Alexandre Lacazette, Aubameyang

While the Guardian gives us

Leno;

Bellerin, Luiz, Gabriel, Tierney;

Ceballas, Partey, Xhaka,

Willian, Aubameyang, Saka

So putting all the votes together we get

Leno (4)

Bellerin (4), Luiz (4), Gabriel (4), Tierney (4);

Ceballas (2), Partey (4), Xhaka, (3)

Willian (3), Aubameyang (4), Saka (3)

Don’t forget, don’t watch it on Sky.  They’ve been very naughty.

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