Confirmed XI: Antony makes his Premier League debut against Arsenal; Casemiro on the bench

Manchester United welcome Arsenal to the Theatre of Dreams in the Premier League this afternoon. Erik ten Hag’s side will be full of confidence ahead of the clash, turning their fortunes around from two opening defeats to winning the last three matches.

At the time of writing, United moved up to fifth in the Premier League after beating Leicester City on Thursday evening with nine points and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal sitting at the top of the league with 15 points. A victory for United will damage this Arsenal side and improve United’s season.

Only a few weeks ago, United were sat at the bottom of the Premier League after two losses in which they had conceded six goals, scoring one. Now they have won the last three matches, scoring four goals, conceding one and keeping two clean sheets. Ten Hag’s United must continue this way.

Manchester United

De Gea;

Dalot, Varane, Martinez, Malacia;

McTominay, Eriksen;

Antony, Fernandes, Sancho;

Rashford

Substitutes

Heaton, Dubravka; Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw; Fred, Casemiro; Ronaldo, Elanga

Arsenal

Ramsdale;

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko;

Lokonga, Xhaka;

Saka, Ødegaard, Martinelli;

Jesus

Substitutes

Turner; Tierney, Holding, Cedric, Tomiyasu; Smith Rowe, Vieira; Nketiah, Marquinhos

United and Arsenal have met 60 times in the Premier League with United winning 25 matches, drawing 18 matches and Arsenal winning 17. United have scored 82 goals, winning eight penalties, scoring five. Arsenal have scored 66 goals, winning five penalties, scoring three.

United have kept 17 clean sheets with Arsenal keeping 19. Discipline has been an issue in this fixture with United players shown 124 yellow cards and five red cards and Arsenal players shown 127 yellow cards and four red cards. Arsenal need to be shown that they are nothing special at the moment.

Paddy Sloan, David Herd, Ian Ure, George Graham, Jimmy Rimmer, Brian Kidd, Frank Stapleton, Viv Anderson, Jim Leighton, David Platt, Andy Cole, Mikael Silvestre, Robin van Persie, Danny Welbeck, Henrikh Mkhitarayan and Alexis Sanchez have all played for both United and Arsenal.

Written by John Walker