Southampton v Arsenal: Shoot for profit at St Mary's

• Saints have good home record v top sides
• Xhaka still getting forward more
• Salisu back as main set-piece threat

I can't say I expected Arsenal to be top of the league at this stage of the season but that's the situation the Gunners find themselves heading into matchday 13.

Title talk

The volume of title talk continues to rise, albeit their chance of winning the league is still only at 8.07/1 on the Betfair Exchange.

The big thing currently being thrown at them in terms of where it will all go wrong is a lack of strength in depth.

Can Arsenal really cope if they get a couple of key injuries - think the likes of Garbiel Jesus, Martin Odegaard or William Saliba?

Title favourites Manchester City certainly look much better equipped in that department but, as we saw with Leicester City's stunning success of seven years ago, it might just be the case that all the key men stay fit and healthy.

Certainly for now the squad is close to 100% with only Oleksandr Zinchenko of Mikel Arteta's first-choice XI set to miss this contest.

Bukayo Saka picked up a knock during Thursday's Europa League win over PSV Eindhoven but he should be fit for the trip to the south coast.

Bogey ground

It's not one Arsenal have relished in the past - and that's a concern for me when you look and see their price to win the game is just 1.68/13.

The Gunners have won on just three of their 11 visits to St Mary's in the Premier League.

Some punters are happy to keep history very much in the past but I'm a big believer in bogey grounds and teams - the mentality changes when going to places you know you've failed at before - and it was notable to see Arteta talking in his pre-match press conference about the problems Arsenal have had down there in previous games.

Of course, there's no doubt which side has the greater form - Saints sit 14th and have won only one of their five home games, conceding in every one.
Yet that sole win gives a nod to another statistic which potential Arsenal backers should note.

Southampton beat Chelsea 2-1 back in August, adding to what has been a pretty impressive home record against the better sides in recent times.

Last season, of the top nine finishers, only two left St Mary's with all three points.

Arsenal lost 1-0 - could they be worth laying here?

Well, their xG figure is considerably lower away than at home (1.38 v 2.64) and Ralph Hasenhuttl certainly seems able to get his players up for the big games.

That said, the Austrian manager does have defensive problems ahead of the game. Kyle Walker-Peters joined Armel Bella-Kotchap on the injury list in midweek when Saints ended a five-game winless run with victory over an improved Bournemouth side.

Still, I'm not convinced enough to be backing Arsenal at their price. For the record, the hosts are 6.25/1 and the draw offered at 4.57/2.

Head to props markets

Instead I'll move to the props markets where a couple of players I've mentioned already this season on these pages again seem priced up too generously.

Let's start with Granit Xhaka, who continues to play higher up the pitch than he was doing this time 12 months ago.

With Thomas Partey sitting behind him, Xhaka has had greater licence to get forward for some time now but the market is still struggling to catch up.

He's landed the 2+ shots bet in six of his last 14 starts in all competitions which makes 9/5 about a recurrence here look a tad large against a side in the bottom seven for shots conceded.

However, what's off-putting is his away figures drop off a fair bit so I'm instead going to add Xhaka 1+ shot to a Bet Builder alongside the hosts' Mohammed Salisu.

Across a period straddling this season and last, Salisu managed a run of hitting 1+ shot in 12 of 20 Premier League starts.

His recent numbers haven't been so good, although much of that can be put down to Bella-Kotchap's appearance in the team - the German has been getting on the end of a lot of set-plays.

However, with Bella-Kotchap expected to miss out due to injury, Salisu should be the main aerial target from James Ward-Prowse's excellent dead-ball deliveries and 7/4 about him managing a shot here looks too big.

Combine the pair and you get a price of 3.8471/25 which looks solid business.

New passes options

For those looking to bump it up, you may want to add Bella-Kotchap's replacement, Duje Caleta-Car, using the new passes markets.

The Croatian has attempted 66 and 57 passes in his two starts so far and so backing him on the 50+ line looks tempting.

Arsenal aren't the biggest pressers in the world and after several key men played on Thursday night, I'm not sure it's a tactic Arteta will be looking to employ with great regularity from the get-go.

That should give Caleta-Car time to kick off plenty of the home side's attacks and, as we saw at Leeds last week, Arsenal may well be content to sit off if they get their noses in front.

For those interested, that takes the price to just under 6/1.

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