Lawro's opponent for the Boxing Day fixtures is You Me At Six singer Josh Franceschi.
Southampton v Tottenham (19:45 GMT)
The good thing from Southampton’s point of view is that it does not look like they will miss injured striker Charlie Austin - they have a few other options up front.
Jay Rodriguez and Sofiane Boufal have done well recently and I think Shane Long gives a lot for the team too - he is not a regular goalscorer but he would chase a paper bag down the street all day for you, even in a hurricane.
Saints will be a test for Tottenham on Mauricio Pochettino’s return to his old club, but his Spurs side have won their past two games and I just get the impression that they might just go on a bit of a run again now.
Lawro’s prediction: 0-2
Josh’s prediction: The only member of the Spurs team that I would have at Arsenal is Hugo Lloris - partly because he is a classy goalkeeper and also because I am half-French so I have a bit of soft spot for French players, even when they play for Spurs - I felt the same about David Ginola too.
As an Arsenal fan I am obviously going to go for a Southampton win here anyway, but I don’t think it will be as comfortable as I would like it to be. Christian Eriksen has hit a bit of form for Spurs and they will cause Saints a few problems. 2-1
Lawro's opponent for the Boxing Day fixtures is You Me At Six singer Josh Franceschi.
Southampton v Tottenham (19:45 GMT)
The good thing from Southampton’s point of view is that it does not look like they will miss injured striker Charlie Austin - they have a few other options up front.
Jay Rodriguez and Sofiane Boufal have done well recently and I think Shane Long gives a lot for the team too - he is not a regular goalscorer but he would chase a paper bag down the street all day for you, even in a hurricane.
Saints will be a test for Tottenham on Mauricio Pochettino’s return to his old club, but his Spurs side have won their past two games and I just get the impression that they might just go on a bit of a run again now.
Lawro’s prediction: 0-2
Josh’s prediction: The only member of the Spurs team that I would have at Arsenal is Hugo Lloris - partly because he is a classy goalkeeper and also because I am half-French so I have a bit of soft spot for French players, even when they play for Spurs - I felt the same about David Ginola too.
As an Arsenal fan I am obviously going to go for a Southampton win here anyway, but I don’t think it will be as comfortable as I would like it to be. Christian Eriksen has hit a bit of form for Spurs and they will cause Saints a few problems. 2-1
The good news is Merson is predicting 2-1 to Spurs.Last Sunday he predicted a Bournemouth win.He rarely gets Saints scores correct.When he has us down to win as he did against Hull we lost.So it is looking good for us and Spurs are not playing as well as last season.They made hard work of beating Burnley last Sunday.
I’m with Josh(did i tell you i’m an Arsenal fan) on this. 2-1 with Eriksen getting theirs. Our goals will come from, well, anyone of 12 or so players. I have no idea who Cluade will start with. I’ll go for Long(due a start and a goal) and VVD(beating Toby to the header).
I’m going 2-1 Saints. We have a great home record in 2016 having only lost to Chelsea in the league. 2 home games and 6 more points please Father Christmas!
If Claude gets his tactics right and gets VVD to drop the diagonal ball over the top for Long and Jay to chase then I fancy our chances. A slow passing approach will play in to their hands.
Claude and I turned a corner recently in our relationship (the acquiesce over the half time introduction of Steven Davis) so I trust that he will get his tactics on point! Therefore I’m going for a 2-1 Saints victory!
The first sentence of this is spot on. A tactic that used to work when we were marching up the leagues. Sir Lambert used to do the damage then. The issue in the Stoke game was the fact we did not get in behind them.
