FA Cup: Saints seek to break jinx against Gunners

Southampton vs Arsenal
Venue: St. Mary’s Stadium
Kick off: 6:30pm

Southampton will attempt to end Arsenal’s dominance at the St Mary’s on Saturday in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
The Saints have never beaten Arsenal in the FA Cup in their previous four meetings.
They have lost three and drawn one game.
Southampton come into the game in the FA Cup in a buoyant mood following their 2-0 aggregate win over Liverpool to make the final of the EFL Cup.
The Saints beat Jurgen Klopp’s team home and away and will face Manchester United in the final at Wembley.
Claude Puel’s side have already beaten Arsenal once this season when they knocked them out of the League Cup in December, and will look to hand them their second cup game defeat of the season on Saturday.
Virgil van Dijk will be a big miss for the Saints, after the defender picked up an ankle ligament injury during their win over Leicester City.
He missed the game against Liverpool on Wednesday and the injury is reported to be worse than expected with reports suggesting that he could be out for at least three months.
Arsenal will be fresher for the game as they got a full week’s rest following their game against Burnley on Sunday, and Arsene Wenger is likely to rotate his players owing to the close proximity of games in the next eight days.
The last time the Gunners were knocked out in the fourth round was during the 2009/10 season when they lost 1-3 away at Stoke City.
The Frenchman shares the record for the maximum number of FA Cup wins – six – with former Aston Villa manager George Ramsay and made it clear that his team are keen to progress further in the competition.
Danny Welbeck, who returned from a long-term knee injury earlier in the month, is in line to make his first start of the season after playing 21 minutes as a substitute in three games thus far.
Wenger, however, could miss the game against the Saints after the FA charged the manager with misconduct after he was sent to the stands during Arsenal’s win over Burnley at the weekend (22 January).
The hearing is yet to take place but a ban could be handed out before the clash at St Mary’s.

Southampton Possible XI: Forster, Soares, Yoshida, Stephens, Bertrand, Hojbjerg, Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Redmond, Rodriguez, Tadic.
Arsenal Possible XI: Ospina, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Gibbs, Ramsey, Coquelin, Iwobi, Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Welbeck.