Mikel Arteta’s Premier League leaders have a golden opportunity to strengthen their grip on top spot in their first game of 2026. We look ahead to Saturday’s clash with our Bournemouth vs Arsenal prediction and preview.
Bournemouth vs Arsenal: The Key Stats
The Opta supercomputer assigns Arsenal a 61.3% chance of victory over Bournemouth, who are only given a 18.4% win probability. Having won just one of their first 14 Premier League games against Arsenal, Bournemouth did the double over the Gunners last season. Leandro Trossard has the most assists (four) and joint-most goals (five) of any Arsenal player in the Premier League this season, with the Belgian both scoring and assisting against Aston Villa last time out.Arsenal’s New Year’s resolution is an obvious one – see the Premier League title race through.
Having finished as runners-up in three successive campaigns, Mikel Arteta’s Gunners start another calendar year as Premier League title favourites, with Matchday 19 proving one of the most eventful yet at the top of the tree.
Arsenal turned on the style in the second half to beat Aston Villa 4-1 at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday, before Manchester City were held to a frustrating goalless draw by Sunderland on New Year’s Day, leaving Pep Guardiola’s men four points off the summit.
The Opta supercomputer now assigns Arsenal a 79% chance of becoming champions of England for the first time in 22 years, with Man City’s hopes dropping to 16.7% following the midweek results. Villa are still third favourites, but they only won the title in 4.1% of simulations after their comprehensive defeat in north London.
On paper, Arsenal should have a straightforward start to 2026 against a Bournemouth team who have gone 10 Premier League matches without a victory for the first time ever (five draws, five losses).
However, having won just one of their first 14 Premier League games against Arsenal (two draws, 11 defeats), Bournemouth did the double over the Gunners last season.
Andoni Iraola’s side triumphed 2-0 in the corresponding fixture at the Vitality Stadium in October 2024, dealing Arsenal their first loss of 2024-25, then earned a 2-1 success in the away fixture last May.
But this Arsenal team are a different beast, with their 4-1 success over Villa representing the biggest margin of victory in a Premier League match between two sides starting the day in the top three since the Gunners lost to Man City by the same scoreline in April 2023.
Gabriel Magalhães got the all-important breakthrough in that match, and his total of 19 Premier League goals is the most by any defender in the competition since his debut in September 2020.
His scrappy effort was also Arsenal’s 20th set-piece goal (excluding penalties) in the Premier League in 2025. Having netted 21 such goals in 2024, they became only the second team to score at least 20 set-piece goals in successive calendar years in the competition after Wimbledon between 1993 and 1996 – Arteta will be keen for that to continue in 2026.
Martín Zubimendi, Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus were then all on target, with Trossard also assisting the latter’s goal. The Belgian has the most assists (four) and joint-most goals (five) of any Arsenal player in the Premier League this season.
Arsenal were without Declan Rice, Riccardo Calafiori and Cristhian Mosquera against Villa, though, and the latter duo will also miss this match, while Rice’s availability remains unclear.
Though their long wait for a victory goes on, Bournemouth did show plenty of fight in Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, with David Brooks and Justin Kluivert both on target in what proved to be Enzo Maresca’s final game in charge of the Blues.
Both of those goals came from long throw-ins taken by Antoine Semenyo, who appeared to be saying his goodbyes to the Cherries’ supporters at full-time as he inches closer to a move to Manchester City.
Iraola said afterwards that Semenyo had not necessarily played his final game for Bournemouth, though, and the Ghanaian could make an immediate positive impact with City’s fanbase by damaging Arsenal’s title bid this weekend, should he feature.
No Bournemouth player has scored more goals (9), registered more assists (3), had more shots (45), had more touches in the opposition’s box (86) or played more passes into the box (96) than Semenyo in the Premier League this season.
Bournemouth vs Arsenal Head-to-Head
Bournemouth have lost 12 of their 13 Premier League games against sides starting the day top of the table, with the exception being a 2-1 home win over Manchester City in November 2024.
And the Gunners have only failed to score in one of their 16 Premier League games against Bournemouth, though that was in a 2-0 defeat in this exact fixture last season.
The Cherries beat Everton 1-0 in their first league game of 2025. They have not won their opening match in consecutive calendar years since 2011-2012, when they beat Swindon Town and Wycombe Wanderers, both in League One.
Arsenal, meanwhile, have lost their opening league game in just one of the last 10 calendar years (7 wins, 2 draws), going down 2-1 at home to Man City on New Year’s Day 2022.
While Bournemouth are enduring their longest winless run in a single top-flight campaign, Arsenal have lost just one of their last 16 Premier League games (12 wins, 3 draws), winning the last four since a 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa in early December.
But Bournemouth do have a decent record at the Vitality Stadium. After losing four consecutive home league games between February and April last year, Bournemouth have lost just two of their last 13 (6 wins, 5 draws). They’ve only lost once at home this season, going down 1-0 against Everton in December.
Bournemouth vs Arsenal Prediction
The Opta supercomputer is firmly behind Arsenal ahead of this game, with their 61.3% win probability the highest assigned to any away Premier League team on MD20.
Bournemouth are only handed an 18.4% chance of success, with 20.2% of pre-match simulations seeing the points shared.
Bournemouth vs Arsenal Predicted Lineups
Bournemouth: Djordje Petrovic, Adam Smith, James Hill, Marcos Senesi, Adrien Truffert, Marcus Tavernier, Alex Scott, David Brooks, Justin Kluivert, Antoine Semenyo, Evanilson.
Head coach: Andoni Iraola.
Arsenal: David Raya, Jurrien Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Piero Hincapié, Martin Ødegaard, Martín Zubimendi, Mikel Merino, Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, Viktor Gyökeres.
Head coach: Mikel Arteta.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off at the Vitality Stadium, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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Bournemouth vs Arsenal Prediction: Will Mikel Arteta’s Men Extend Premier League Lead Further? Opta Analyst.
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