Arsenal vs Crystal Palace: 5 key players to watch for

Arsenal are rolling, looking for their twelfth straight against Crystal Palace. Here are five key players to watch for in the match.

Arsenal won their eleventh in a row when they knocked off Sporting CP in an impressive away win in the Europa League. Prior to that, it was another impressive win against Leicester City. All the while the English media has been trying to dismiss the Gunners as playing inferior opposition, but as many have pointed out, if it were as easy as they are making it out to be, why hasn’t anyone else done it yet?

Anyway, I’ll step off my soapbox. Next up on the schedule is a beleaguered Crystal Palace, who have scored the second least goals in the Premier League thus far into the season, although their defense has given up exactly as many as our Gunners.

Still, it’s a match that should be well within our grasp, assuming we can keep Wilfried Zaha from doing something superhuman and taking us out all by himself. But come on, that isn’t going to happen.

Let’s talk about actual realistic things, like the five key players to watch for as the Gunners cruise to a twelfth consecutive win (am I being overconfident?). We start with No. 5.

5. Bernd Leno (or Petr Cech)

No matter how much I want to downplay our opponent, they’re still going to get their shots and that means that Bernd Leno is going to be tested. He has been lights out thus far into his tenure as the No. 1 keeper, but we are going to need him to stay just as conclusive to keep this run going.

He was barely tested against Sporting CP, but gets credit for the clean sheet regardless. No doubt he will want to make it two consecutive clean sheets in this one.

He has made some great saves early on in this run, against Watford, Fulham and Leicester, for instance, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him live up to expectations yet again when faced with the likes of Zaha and Benteke.

Let’s move on to No. 4.