Southampton boss Tonda Eckert believes his side have found a couple of areas where they can “hurt” Arsenal as they look to cause an upset in their FA Cup quarter-final.
Mikel Arteta's Premier League leaders will be looking to keep their Treble hopes alive at St Mary's on Saturday night, but it will be the first time the team have been in action since their Carabao Cup final loss to Manchester City two weeks ago.
A Champions League quarter-final at Sporting and Premier League clash with Bournemouth quickly follow the trip to Southampton, where the Gunners are favourites to progress despite their injury concerns after 11 players withdrew from international duty during the break.
Arsenal have only lost four matches this season but Championship play-off hopefuls Southampton are also in a rich vein of form, having gone 14 unbeaten in all competition and winning 1-0 at Fulham in the previous round.
"It is a great team," Saints boss Eckert said. "I think rightfully every single manager in a press conference praises what Arsenal does and I can only continue that praise.
"It's a fantastic team with many, many answers to problems that you give them, so the preparation was fun this week because there's many more iterations of what you could potentially do.
"You see that they do have answers to many possible solutions, but I think we have found a couple of bits where we are able to hurt them and we just need to make sure we bring that on the pitch."
