Aston Villa Vs Arsenal: Match preview

Aston Villa will look to continue their winning start to their season by building on their 2-1 victory against West Ham United last weekend when they face Arsenal at Villa Park on Saturday. The match which is a 17:30pm (UK time) kick-off and being shown live on Sky Sports, will see Unai Emery once again come up against his former team.

Reflections on last week's result

Villa got their season underway in perfect fashion last week by winning away at West Ham for the first time in 13 years. Unai Emery, since taking over as manager in 2022, has a habit of breaking old Villa curses and last week's victory was another to add to the list. Typically a ground that Villa don't do well at, combined with the fact Villa had a poor pre-season, the odds were against the team coming away from the game with a positive result.

However, Amadou Onana's debut goal inside the first five minutes set the tone for the match and hopefully for the season. Villa dominated the game and should really have been three or four goals up at the break. Unfortunately, a soft penalty awarded following a clumsy challenge by Matty Cash meant the teams went in level at the break. Villa will have to make sure this weekend that they take their chances should they create similar openings as last week. Arsenal have plenty of attacking quality and will possess a greater threat to the Villa goal than West Ham so Villa will need to be more clinical in front of goal when the early opportunities come their way.

Other than the penalty Villa were solid at the back and didn't look like conceding another. Other than Tomas Soucek's late opportunity the defence were rarely troubled. This was largely down to the fact that both Ezri Konsa and Pau Torres at the centre of defence came away with 100% success from their duels during the match. Should that continue this weekend, Arsenal's chances will be limited.

Villa will take huge confidence from the win at the London Stadium as they face a side that they completed the double over last season.

Arteta's Arsenal aiming to go one better

Mikel Arteta and Arsenal have finished second in the Premier League for the past two seasons. Having only made one new addition this summer (Riccardo Calafiori) they will be hoping that their experience from the past two years and a potential downturn in success for Manchester City will result in them going one better this year and claiming the Premier League title.

The Gunners kicked off their 2024/25 campaign with a 2-0 win at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers last Saturday. Bukayo Saka was the star man for Arsenal, as he is so often is, with a goal and an assists. Kai Havertz also continued his good form from last season and the European Championships with a goal and assist also.

Head-to-Head record

Aston Villa's recent history against Arsenal is a positive one. Since Unai Emery took over as manager of Villa he has overcome Arteta twice and been defeated once. Villa completed the double over Arsenal last season and was the main reason for Arsenal falling short in second place.

Since 2020, Villa have beaten Arsenal five times from their nine meetings. Villa and England forward Ollie Watkins has scored five goals against the Gunners and will be looking to get off the mark this season on Saturday.

Arsenal fans have been keen to create debate on social media regarding the quality of both managers. Unai Emery left Arsenal in November 2019 with his reputation heavily impacted following his short spell with the club. However, as the tweet below shows, Emery's record at the club was better than that of Arteta's during the same time frame at the start of his Arsenal tenure. Arsenal fans seem to hold a lot of disrespect towards Emery and and don't like the face he is doing well at a fellow Premier League club. As a result of the ongoing debate over who is the better manager, there is the feeling this fixture has become a small rivalry and therefore the tension will be high.

Predicted line-ups and who to watch

Aston Villa: Martinez, Konsa, Carlos, Torres, Digne, Tielemans, Onana, McGinn, Bailey, Rogers, Watkins

Matty Cash was withdrawn through injury towards the end of last week's win at West Ham. It appeared to be a hamstring injury and therefore is unlikely to be fit for this game. As a result, Diego Carlos is likely to step in to centre-half with Ezri Konsa heading to right-back. This line-up at the back beat Arsenal twice last season. Despite coming on to score the winner last week, Jhon Duran is likely to start as a substitute with Ollie Watkins possessing such a good scoring record against Arsenal.

Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Rice, Partey, Odegaard, Trossard, Saka, Havertz

Declan Rice was himself withdrawn due to injury last week and is a minor doubt for this game. It is expected that he will be fit to play however. Otherwise, the team will be similar to the one that beat Wolves with Trossard potentially coming in for Martinelli. Bukayo Saka will be the one to watch for Arsenal and he will look to use his pace to expose Lucas Digne at left-back.

Prediction

I will be at Villa Park for this one and I am predicting that the place will be rocking. There will be a very positive buzz amongst the Villa faithful and when the electric Villa Park atmosphere takes over it is a difficult task for any away side.

Last season's victories over Arsenal were fundamentally due to winning the midfield battle. Arsenal possess world class midfielders in Martin Odegaard, Declan Rice and Thomas Partey and Villa will need to win the battle across the middle of the park if they are to win this game. Amadou Onana and Youri Tielemans' partnership in midfield worked wonderfully last week and those two and captain McGinn will need to be on top form to limit Arsenal's creative flair through midfield. Due to our very positive performance last week and our recent record against the Gunners I am going to predict a 2-1 win for Villa. Ollie Watkins and Youri Tielemans to score the goals.

UTV