Arsenal vs. Newcastle United: A Quick Preview

Today's match preview will be short and to the point as time is of the essence. With "Manure" winning yesterday, Arsenal need a win to regain second place and put some pressure on Chelsea before they kickoff away to Liverpool in today's later game.

Arsenal will have seen how well Wolves did against "Manure" yesterday and they know they will have a tough trip to Wolves on Wednesday night. First of all, though, they have to concentrate on today's match with Newcastle.

Arsenal's second-string may have beaten them 4-0 away from home in the Carling Cup, but Andy Carroll was only a sub for them in that game, and he caused plenty of problems when he came on late in the game. He pulled to their left side, and Bakari Sagna certainly found him to be a handful.

The big question for Newcastle today will be whether they can get enough good service to Carroll to cause Arsenal problems.

With that in mind, Arsenal need to cut out the sloppiness that has crept into some of their recent home games in the Premier League. The best way to do that is to play the strongest team possible and go straight for Newcastle from the kickoff. Sooner or later, Arsenal have to start scoring early goals at home against weaker opposition and hopefully that will start today.

I would hope for a starting 11 with Lukasz Fabianski, Bakari Sagna, Laurent Koscielny and Sebastien Squillaci in defence. In midfield there should be Alex Song, Cesc Fabregas and Jack Wilshere with Maraoune Chamakh, Samir Nasri and Theo Walcott taking up the three attacking roles.

That means that Andrei Arshavin will be on the bench, but I think Walcott deserves his chance as he is Arsenal's joint top scorer despite having missed most of the season injured so far. Against a slightly slow Newcastle back four, with Cesc and Wilshere to pick him out, I hope he can get in behind them a few times. We have seen how clinical he has become when he is one on one with the keeper this season, and I fully expect him to start, and score today.

If the goals don't come early, they need to be patient and keep playing the right way as they did against West Ham. Hopefully, it will be a better performance than in that game, but if it's not, the three points have to be achieved.

I'm predicting a 3-1 win for Arsenal with Chamakh getting on the score sheet as well, and possibly Cesc, too.  There is some talk of Robin van Persie making the bench today, but I would be very surprised to see him anywhere but in the stands.

That's it for a very quick preview, but I'll be back tomorrow with a detailed analysis of the what will hopefully be a great win for Arsenal.

See you tomorrow.