Arsenal will once again kick off the new Premier League season with a London derby as they travel to Crystal Palace live on talkSPORT!
The Gunners will want to avoid a repeat of their antics on matchday one of last campaign when they suffered a humiliating defeat to Brentford.
That result was followed by two more defeats to cap a miserable start to the season, but there is renewed optimism under Mikel Arteta this time around.
Arsenal’s new stars Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko took over and the club boasted a perfect pre-season record.
However, Palace will prove their biggest test to see how far they have come, with the Eagles having lost just one of their last eight Premier League meetings with Arsenal.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: talkSPORT commentary
The opening match of the 2022/23 Premier League season will take place on Friday August 5th.
talkSPORT will have exclusive live coverage of the game at Selhurst Park, which is scheduled to start at 8pm.
Adrian Durham will be your presenter while commentary will come from Sam Matterface and former England striker Dean Ashton.
To tune into talkSPORT or talkSPORT 2 via the website click HERE for the live stream. You can also listen through the talkSPORT app, on DAB digital radio, through your smart speaker and on 1089 or 1053 AM.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: Team News
Patrick Vieira is struggling with a goalkeeper problem ahead of his former side’s visit following Jack Butland’s broken hand.
Sam Johnstone is closing in on a return from a thigh injury, but if he fails to make the squad, veteran Vicente Guaita is expected to start.
Meanwhile, Arsenal have been without the same quartet of Kieran Tierney, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe for weeks.
But Arteta remained positive about his health after the 6-0 win over Sevilla, saying: “They will have to go through what they need this week and hopefully we will have them available.
“They’re running out of minutes but we’ll have to rack that up like any other injury we get during the season.”
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: What was said?
Eberechi Eze, who netted an assist in Palace’s 4-2 win over Montpellier, urged his side to replicate that performance on Friday.
“I haven’t seen him again yet,” he told Palace TV after the game.
“It was fun today, we played well and that’s the kind of performance we need to put in for Friday’s game, which is the most important.
“It was fun to play in [centre] Midfielder. I’ve played there several times and it’s where you can take the ball, play and touch the ball. That’s what I want to do.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: Match Facts
- Gabriel Magalhães is the only current Arsenal player to score for the club in their opening match of a Premier League campaign, netting on his Fulham debut in 2020-21.
- Gabriel Jesus could make his Premier League debut for Arsenal in this game – the Gunners have had more different Brazilian goalscorers than any other team in the competition (11). Meanwhile, the former Man City man has been involved in seven goals in his last seven league games (6 goals, 1 assist).
- None of Arsenal’s last 17 Premier League games have finished level (W11 L6). It is the longest running streak without a draw in the competition among the current 20 teams, while only once have the Gunners had such a longer streak (25 between January and October 2018).
- Crystal Palace finished the 2021-22 Premier League campaign unbeaten in six home games (W3 D3), while keeping a clean sheet in each of the last five. The Eagles last had a longer unbeaten home run in the top flight between March and August 1992, when they never kept six consecutive clean sheets at home in the Premier League.
- Arsenal have had more players sent off in their opening game of a Premier League campaign than any other team (6), most recently Laurent Koscielny against Aston Villa in 2013-14. Crystal Palace have only had one such red card, although this came against Arsenal on the opening day of the 2014-15 campaign.
- Arsenal have lost their first Premier League game in five of their last nine seasons (W4) after losing their first game in just one of their 19 campaigns before this run; the Gunners lost 2-0 to Brentford last season.
- Crystal Palace have won their first top-flight league game in just five of their previous 22 seasons (D7 L10), although they have won two of their last four (D1 L1), beating Fulham in 2018-19 and Southampton in 2020-21. .
- Crystal Palace v Arsenal will be the fifth time in top-flight history that the season has kicked off on a Friday night, with the home side winning on each of the previous four occasions – Arsenal 4-3 Leicester in 2017-18, Man Utd 2-1 Leicester in 2018-19, Liverpool 4-1 Norwich in 2019-20 and Brentford 2-0 Arsenal last season.
- This is the third season in a row that Arsenal have started their Premier League campaign with a London derby. They won 3-0 at Fulham in 2020-21, before losing 2-0 at Brentford in the 2021-22 season opener.
- Crystal Palace have lost just one of their last eight Premier League meetings with Arsenal (W2 D5). After a 3-0 victory in April, the Eagles are looking to win back-to-back league games against the Gunners for the first time in their history.
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