Team news, stats and prediction ahead of Arsenal vs Brighton in the Premier League on Sunday, live on Sky Sports Arena (kick-off 4pm).

Team news

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta confirmed Hector Bellerin will be unavailable for the club’s final game of the season against Brighton at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

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Bellerin, who is widely expected to leave the north London club this summer, has been unable to recover from the lower leg injury he suffered against Chelsea last week.

Back-up goalkeeper Mat Ryan is ineligible to face his parent club while David Luiz’s thigh injury could prevent him playing in his final Arsenal match.

Brighton forward Danny Welbeck will be absent against one of his former clubs after suffering a hamstring injury in the midweek win over Manchester City.

Albion captain Lewis Dunk returns from a two-match ban but striker Neal Maupay is once again unavailable as he completes a three-game suspension.

Joel Veltman (calf), Davy Propper (ankle), Solly March (knee), Tariq Lamptey (hamstring) and Jose Izquierdo (quad) remain out injured for the Seagulls.

Race for Europe – the permutations

Arsenal are facing up to the first season in 25 years without European football… unless they can pull off a final-day surge into the Europa Conference League.

The Gunners must beat Brighton on the final day, and hope Tottenham and Everton fail to win their matches against Leicester and Man City, respectively.

How to follow

Arsenal vs Brighton will be shown live on Sky Sports Arena from 3.50pm; kick-off 4pm. Sky Sports customers can watch in-game clips in the live match blog on the Sky Sports website and app. Highlights will also be published on the Sky Sports digital platforms and the Sky Sports Football YouTube channel shortly after the final whistle.

Sunday 23rd May 3:50pm


Kick off 4:00pm

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Jones Knows’ prediction

Arsenal somehow still have a chance of making it into Europe and have been backed accordingly in the market to win this game with that incentive on the line. The Gunners must beat Brighton on the final day, and hope Tottenham and Everton fail to win their matches against Leicester and Man City, respectively. Whether or not the Europa Conference League is enough of a motivation is debatable but the opportunity to finish above Tottenham surely will get the pulses racing.

However, I cannot have the Gunners at such short odds. Brighton do not win many but they do not lose many either – they have lost the fewest amount of games of all the teams in the bottom 10, drawing a whopping 14 games along the way. Another draw could be on the cards here.

Graham Potter will have them expertly organised as ever and dangerous in transition with Leandro Trossard likely to play in a very advanced role with no Danny Welbeck or Neal Maupay available. Fresh from a well-taken goal in the win over Manchester City, he can score again at 9/2 with Sky Bet.

CORRECT SCORE PREDICTION: 2-2

Last time out…

2:59

3:05

Opta stats

• Arsenal are looking to complete their first league double over Brighton since the 1980-81 campaign. Indeed, the Gunners have won just two of their seven meetings with Brighton since the Seagulls were promoted to the Premier League (D2 L3).
• Brighton won this exact fixture 2-1 last season, their first ever top-flight away win against Arsenal (D2 L4).
• Arsenal haven’t lost their final league game of the season since 2004-05 (1-2 vs Birmingham), and have won each of their last nine games to end a Premier League campaign.
• When finishing a Premier League season at home, Arsenal have won each of their last 11 matches, with their last defeat coming in 1992-93 at the hands of Tottenham (1-3).
• Brighton have won their final league game in just one of the last six campaigns (D3 L2), though this did come at Burnley last season (2-1).
• Arsenal have taken just 25 points from their 18 Premier League home games this season (W7 D4 L7). If they fail to win here, it will be their lowest ever home points total in a Premier League campaign (currently 27 in 1994-95), while they last won fewer across a single campaign in 1912-13 (11).
• Arsenal have won each of their last four Premier League games, last winning more consecutively in October 2018 under Unai Emery (a run of 7).
• Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored in the final Premier League game in each of the last three campaigns. The last Arsenal player to score in their last league match in four consecutive campaigns was Alan Smith between 1988-89 and 1991-92.
• Nicolas Pépé is looking to score in three consecutive games in all competitions for the first time in his Arsenal career. Only Alexandre Lacazette (20) has been directly involved in more goals for the Gunners than the Ivorian this term (19 – 14 goals, 5 assists).
• No player has more Premier League assists in 2021 than Brighton’s Pascal Groß (6), while only Mesut Özil (54) and Leroy Sané (28) have more Premier League assists among German players than Groß (23) in the history of the competition.

Pitch to Post Preview – The Premier League final day race for European football assessed

In the final Pitch to Post Preview Podcast of the Premier League season we look ahead to the final day and debate which sides will come out on top in the race for European football.

From the three-way battle for two top-four places and Champions League football between Chelsea, Liverpool and Leicester, to West Ham, Tottenham and Everton vying for a Europa League place, and Arsenal’s chances of a Europa Conference League appearance, Sky Sports’ Nick Wright and Oli Yew join Peter Smith to assess the various permutations – and make their predictions!

The panel also reflect on another Premier League title win for Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City as they prepare to lift the trophy in front of their own fans on Sunday.

Listen to the Sky Sports Pitch to Post Podcast on: Spotify | Apple | Castbox

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