Arsenal vs Juventus

Arsenal and Juventus are set to lock horns in a behemoth mid-season friendly at the Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal’s mid-season break was off to a sluggish start as Mikel Arteta’s side slipped to an underwhelming 4-2 defeat to EFL Championship outfit Watford in early December. However, the current Premier League pacesetters have since gone from strength to strength, winning back-to-back friendlies against Lyon and AC Milan by an aggregate score of 5-1. With each of their five goals scored across those two games arriving before halftime, you’d be forgiven for anticipating a quick-fire start. But it’s worth noting that each of Arsenal’s last four meetings with Juventus has seen one or both sides failing to score in matches garnering under 2.5 total goals (W2, D1, L1). Back to the Emirates Stadium, where they lost 3-1 to Brighton in their most recent outing, the ‘Gunners’ will be looking to avenge a 1-0 H2H defeat in the 2008 Emirates Cup.

In the meantime, Juventus were seemingly on the verge of another frustrating season-long fight for Champions League promotion following a lacklustre nine-game Serie A start (W3, D4, L2). But Massimiliano Allegri’s men had hit the ground running on the stroke of the World Cup break, stringing together six successive league matches without conceding. Despite failing to make it out of the Champions League group stages for the first time since 2013/14, ‘I Bianconeri’ have developed into rock-solid top-four candidates in Serie A, helping under-pressure manager Allegri weather the storm. Allegri has based his team’s renaissance on a water-tight backline, with three of Juventus’ last four road trips across all competitions yielding identical 1-0 victories (L1).