Arsenal face high-flying Watford on Saturday, looking for a seventh consecutive win in a row in all competitions.

The Gunners are currently on a longer run of wins than any of the other big six clubs, and adding another victory this weekend would bring the team up to fifth place in the table, minimum.

That’s because they’re facing fourth-placed Watford, one point ahead of them. Clearly it’s not going to be an easy match. The Hornets were so unlucky to lose in their mid-week League Cup tie against Spurs, and already beat Mauricio Pochettino’s side in the league. Even their defeat to Manchester United was a close game.

Emery is likely to name a much-changed side from the mid-week League Cup game. Let’s have a look at our team predictions for the match.

Goalkeeper and Defence

Petr Cech was Arsenal’s man of the match against Everton last weekend, and helped the team to their first clean sheet of the season. He’ll come back in the team for Bernd Leno, who didn’t do too badly against Brentford, but is clearly still yet to convince Unai Emery he should be starting.

Hector Bellerin will come back into the team for Stephan Lichtsteiner, as the Swiss international is still yet to completely find his feet in the Arsenal team. Sokratis Papastathopoulos is back from injury, and should return to the team.

I’d very much like to see Rob Holding alongside him, but unfortunately that seems unlikely. Shkodran Mustafi will probably start instead.

Sead Kolasinac made the bench in midweek, and could play a part in this match at some stage. Nacho Monreal looks to be set to continue his run of starts for now though.

Midfield

Torreira came off the bench and provided an assist in Arsenal’s win over Brentford, and seems to have found his place in the first-choice team at this point. He’ll start alongside Granit Xhaka, who got a rest in the League Cup match.

Aaron Ramsey has had a lot of speculation surrounding him this week, with rumours suggesting Arsenal’s contract talks with him have broken down completely. If Emery feels this is going to affect the midfielder’s performance on the pitch, he might consider a change.

Considering he hasn’t seen fit to drop the midfielder so far though, we’ll assume the Welshman starts again.

Forwards

Considering Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette have both scored in each of their last two appearances, it’d be difficult to drop either of them. The pair are rekindling the partnership that looked so effective at the end of last season, and hopefully they’ll add another goal or two on Saturday.

Mesut Özil got a rest against Brentford, and will come back into the team on the right. Henrikh Mkhitaryan is the only real alternative at the moment, and he played in midweek.

Although the Armenian did come off early, he was only just returning from an injury. The switch probably had more to do with that than resting him for Watford.

Click ‘Next’ for the full starting eleven

Full predicted starting eleven