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Can Arsenal beat Manchester United without Adebayor and van Persie?

Arsenal/Man Utd, 12.45pm, Sky Sports 1, Free Bets, Best Odds

As well as giving their site a makeover, our friends at chickendinner have been investigating Arsenal’s record with and without top-scorers Emmanuel Adebayor and Robin van Persie in order to ascertain whether or not the Gunners stand a chance of winning tomorrow. Here’s what they discovered:

» There has only been one league match this season that Adebayor hasn’t started – the away game against West Ham – and on that occasion he got them out of jail when he came on by creating the opener and scoring the second.

» As well as being the Gunners’ overall top-scorer with nine goals, Adebayor has made six league assists this season, a total that only Manchester United’s Dimitar Berbatov can match.

» It’s been over a year since Adebayor last missed a league game for Arsenal. The last two he played no part in were the first two games of last season – a 2-1 win against Fulham and a 1-1 draw at Blackburn. While Arsenal took points in both games, it’s worth noting that van Persie scored in both.

» Van Persie appeared in fifteen league games last season. Arsenal’s record with van Persie of 2.2 points a game was marginally better than their average of 2.17 without him, although they lost two of three league games against Big Four clubs with van Persie playing, compared to none of the three that he missed.

» Three of Arsenal’s six goals against Manchester United over the past two seasons were scored by Adebayor and van Persie, while another was scored by the since-departed Thierry Henry. The duo have scored ten of Arsenal’s 23 league goals this season.

» Arsenal failed to score in their last two league games where both Adebayor and van Persie were missing. Both games – a 1-0 loss at Everton and a goalless draw with Portsmouth – came at the end of the 2006-07 season. They did however win their last home league game without the duo, a 2-1 victory over Reading in March 2007 where Julio Baptista and Theo Walcott started up front.

» Nicklas Bendtner’s four home league goals have all come against either top-six clubs or Tottenham. He scored the winner against Spurs last year, a last-minute equaliser against Aston Villa, a leveller against Liverpool and the only goal in a 1-0 win over Everton.

• Arsenal
• Arsene Wenger
• Dimitar Berbatov
• Emmanuel Adebayor
• Manchester United
• Nicklas Bendtner
• Premier League
• Robin van Persie