Football Pundit Paul Merson has boldly predicted that Arsenal could “destroy” Newcastle United at the Emirates stadium this Saturday if the visitors doesn’t improve their shabby defense.
The Gunners have won in five consecutive Premier League games, netting 21 goals in the process, despite suffering a surprising loss to FC Porto in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16.
Meanwhile, Newcastle have also remained undefeated in their last five matches across all competitions. However, their defensive performance during this period has been lackluster, with 17 goals conceded.
Paul Merson have predicted a comfortable 3-1 victory in favor of Arsenal in his weekly prediction column on Sportskeeda to revenge their earlier controversial defeat to Newcastle this season at St James park.
Merson Opined that: “Arsenal suffered a big blow last night. They last won a European trophy 30 years ago. It just shows you how hard European competitions really are – you need the experience. They had a lot of the ball away from home, but they didn’t really know what to do with it. I’m not sure why they changed the away-goals rule – you’re now going to get games like this because teams will go into a shell in their away matches.
“I don’t think their European setback will affect Arsenal this weekend. Newcastle have been inconsistent recently but have managed to remain unbeaten in their last five matches. They’re scoring goals, but they’re conceding far too many goals as well. They cannot go to Arsenal this weekend and defend like that – they’ll get destroyed.“
Newcastle’s defence is struggling at the moment, but they don’t have much to play for. I like watching them play because they open games up, but they don’t want to do that against Arsenal – it could get messy. Bukayo Saka could have a field day in this fixture, and I expect Arsenal to win this game comfortably.”
Newcastle currently sit 8th on the league table and are 18 points behind third place holders Arsenal.
