Arsenal kick off the 2017/18 Premier League season against Leicester City at the Emirates.
After finishing fifth last season, Arsenal will be hoping to get their 2017/18 campaign off to a strong start against the 2015/16 champions.
Since the Foxes appeared to forget how to play last term, despite managing to prevent Arsenal from signing the best player in the world Jamie Vardy, they finished in mid-table and therefore the Gunners will be favourites going into the clash.
Saying this, Arsene Wenger’s side do love an opening day loss, so there’s always that to look forward to.
Team news
Alexis (abdomen), Jack Wilshere (fibula), Gabriel (knee), Francis Coquelin (ankle), Shkodran Mustafi (unfit), Per Mertesacker (head), Joel Campbell (knee), and Santi Cazorla (ankle) are all potentially set to miss out again Leicester, which is far from ideal.
Mesut Ozil was also expected to be sidelined after a knock to his ankle but according to reports, he should be fine after all.
Aaron Ramsey also trained despite his ‘muscular’ problem and should be in contention.
Laurent Koscielny is still out through suspension after being a silly sausage against Everton.
We therefore should see a pretty similar starting XI to the one that Wenger put out against Chelsea in the Community Shield on Sunday except for one or two changes.
Predicted XI (3-4-2-1): Cech, Monreal, Holding, Bellerin, Kolasinac, Elneny, Xhaka, Ox, Ozil, Iwobi, Lacazette.
Opposition
The Foxes have only won one of their seven pre-season fixtures, which doesn’t bode well for them. Although saying that, Arsenal will still probably find a way to make beating them difficult at the Emirates on Friday.
However, Leicester’s last match on 4 August against Borussia M’gladbach was their only win (2-1) so they could be full of confidence ahead of their trip to London.
The Foxes have signed Kelechi Iheanacho from Manchester City, Harry Maguire from Hull and Vicente Iborra from Sevilla but Iheanacho (ankle) and Iborra (groin) are out, as well as Robert Huth, Daniel Drinkwater and Islam Slimani.
How to watch
The match kicks off at 7:45pm on Friday 11 August.
You can watch coverage from 7pm on Sky Sports Premier League if you’re in the UK.
Alternatively, if you’re not in the UK, you can find out where you can watch it from LiveOnSat.com.
