In a crunch fixture to decide the fate of the top and the bottom on the Barclays English Premier League, Arsenal will welcome Wigan Athletic to the Emirates on Tuesday night.
The race to the top four spots of the premier league table has gone down to the wire, with Chelsea securing a third place finish with a win against Aston Villa over the weekend.
Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur must battle it out for the most important fourth spot. Luckily for the home team, full-back Keiran Gibbs can be expected to start this match after recovering from a thigh injury which has troubled him since January. Goalkeeper Fabiansky is also expected to be back after a long injury lay-off.
Striker Olivier Giroud will be serving his third and last match suspension in this game. Incidentally, Arsenal are undefeated at the Emirates in their last 8 home games, which is a record that the Latics will try hard to break.
On the other hand, Wigan Athletic will make the trip to London after writing history of their own last Saturday when they beat Manchester City 1-0 at Wembley to lift the FA Cup for the first time in their history.
Luckily for Wigan, McManaman, Kone and Shaun Maloney are hitting form for them at the right moment, and the club will need all three of them to fire in tonight’s match if they are to lift themselves up from the relegation zone of the league.
Wigan have played 36 games this season and have amassed 35 points. They are four points adrift of 17th placed Sunderland but have tonight’s crucial game in hand.
Probable line-ups:
Arsenal:
Szczesny; Sagna, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs; Arteta, Ramsey; Walcott, Rosicky, Cazorla; Podolski
Wigan Athletic:
Robles; Boyce, Alcaraz, Scharner; McCarthy, Watson, McArthur, Espinoza; McManaman, Koné, Maloney