EPL: Gunners ambush Stoke City

Arsenal vs. Stoke City
Venue: Emirates Stadium
Kick off: 1:30PM

Arsenal will attempt to make it four wins on the spin when they welcome Premier League strugglers Stoke City to the Emirates Stadium this afternoon.
The Gunners’ recent form may sound impressive, but they are still heading towards their worst season under Arsene Wenger and are seemingly just one bad result away from another crisis.
Achieving anything in the Premier League has long been out of the question, with the Gunners sixth in the table and 13 points off fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.
The gap on leaders Manchester City, meanwhile, now stands at 36 points – a truly incredible gulf.
Shkodran Mustafi revealed earlier this week that a team meeting was called following the recent losing run, and results have indeed improved since then.
A two-legged last-16 win over AC Milan has kept the North Londoners on course for some sort of silverware, while a 3-0 victory over Watford in the league ensures that they still have the very slimmest aspirations of finishing in the top four.
On the other hand, Stoke find themselves down in 19th place, kept off the bottom of the division by a West Bromwich Albion side that has somehow managed to be even worse over the past eight months, and things do not get any easier for them.
As Ryan Shawcross pointed out recently, City will now effectively need to pick up victory against one of Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur or Liverpool during an extremely tough run-in if they are to have any hope of dodging the drop.

Arsenal possible XI: Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Xhaka, Ramsey, Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Iwobi, Aubameyang.
Stoke City possible XI: Butland, Johnson, Shawcross, Zouma, Pieters, Fletcher, Ndiaye, Shaqiri, Allen, Sobhi, Crouch.