English Premier League Play - Arsenal @ Sunderland

English Premier League Round 4 Play:

     

Arsenal @ Sunderland

Game Time: Saturday, 10:00 AM EST

Sunderland's coach Paolo Di Canio continues having the same bad temper that he used to showcase as a player. On the team's last game at Crystal Palace and after watching forward Ji Dong-Won failing a great scoring chance, Di Canio made fun of him and replaced him at halftime. Then, after team's captain John O'Shea had a critical error that cost the team a penalty kick to Palace and got O'Shea sent off from the game, Di Canio said the following on the flash interview:

"Our leader didn't react in the way he should. That is terrible because it was a crucial game for us," said Di Canio. "The penalty didn't come from a dangerous situation. It's absolutely poor and not acceptable. It was difficult to see this goal at this level. John O'Shea did something really wrong but he is an experienced footballer. It is not just with John O'Shea, but with a few players and there is not the right desire," added the Italian. "I cannot change the heart of my players."

This isn't the best way to manage a team and the truth is that Sunderland has just one point after three games, even though they had a quite accessible schedule, where they faced Fulham, Southampton and Crystal Palace.

On the other side, Arsenal bounced back quite well after losing against Aston Villa on their league debut. They defeated Fenerbahçe twice on Champions League qualifying, while they also easily defeated Fulham on the road and defeated Tottenham at home by 1-0, in a game where they had a better offensive flow than Tottenham, while their defense was also able to do a serviceable job. On trade deadline, Arsenal managed to sign Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid with a club record fee of 42M pounds. Ozil will help Arsenal in being an even better offensive team and certainly few teams in this league can match Arsenal's offensive flow and creativity in the front.

The problem is that Arsenal continues being far from being a top class defensive unit and Arsene Wenger didn't spend anything on trying to improve his team on this area. Depth might also become a short-term problem for them, as they are currently facing a number of injury concerns with Tomas Rosicky, Abou Diaby, Thomas Vermaelen, Mikel Arteta, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lukas Podolski and Yaya Sanogo all sidelined. However, coach Wenger said that most of these injuries aren't worrying at all:

"We have lost Rosicky and everybody else should be available. I haven't decided but there is a possibility Özil could start."

For this game, I expect Arsenal to take control of the game, while Sunderland should struggle on defense without their suspended captain John O'Shea, while Wes Brown is also doubtful for this game. On their last two games, Sunderland allowed Southampton to have 67% ball possession and 17 total shots, while they allowed Crystal Palace to have 18 total shots on their last game. If Di Canio's team struggled so much against these two teams, things will only get much worse against a top offensive team like Arsenal. Therefore, I expect Arsenal to score some goals on this game, allowing them to pick up an easy win in here. I'm taking Arsenal on this contest.

NOTE: I expect Arsenal to be a public team on this contest, so this is why I'm already releasing this Saturday play! 

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Arsenal (-0.75) @ -110 / 1.91 on Pinnacle OR -116 / 1.86 on 5Dimes