AZ Alkmaar v Arsenal

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Arsenal made it seven straight victories on the spin against Birmingham at the weekend and Arsene Wengers' side travel to Dutch side Alkmaar with confidence sky high. The Gunners are the highest scoring team in the Premiership having found the back of the net 27 times in their opening eight fixtures, although they have conceded eleven goals, which is their most porous start to a Premier League campaign to date.

Alkmaar may be propping up Group H with just a solitary point from their opening two games, but they have lost just once in 34 home games in UEFA Club competition, while on their six previous competitive home games against English opposition, they were unbeaten before facing Everton two seasons ago. They had previously won two and drawn three. However, recent league results have been very poor with Ronald Koeman's side losing four of their last five matches, although there was plenty of encouragement to be gleamed from their performance against table-toppers FC Twente at the weekend. Despite scoring twice against Twente, AZ have managed just four goals in their last six matches in league and Champions League, and that is a worrying statistic.

To put that defeat at Twente into context, Arsenal thrashed FC Twente by an aggregate of 6-0 in the qualifying stage of last year's competition, which highlights the huge gulf in class between these two sides.

Gunners' centre-back Thomas Vermaelen, who has been a revelation in scoring four goals already, will be familiar with AZ's Gill Swerts, Maarten Martens, Moussa Dembele and Sebastien Pocognoli, all of whom are team-mates of his in the Belgian national team. The Gunners' look likely to be without Theo Walcott who was taken off after 33 minutes against Birmingham having picked up a knee injury in a tackle with Liam Ridgewell.
The home side's lack of firepower is the major concern, especially as Arsenal look almost nailed on to find the back of the net at least once, and perhaps the way to go is to back Arsenal with a -1 start in the handicap market, at BP 8-5. Arsenal will need to win by two clear goals to land the bet but they are in irresistable form going forward at the moment, so that looks a very realistic possibility.


PREDICTION : Back Arsenal at -1 on the handicap.