Arsenal travel to Birmingham to take on Aston Villa, a tasty matchup of first against third in the table. In an odd quirk of the schedule and how the season has gone, it’s the second weekend in a row where
the Gunners have to go away to face a title-challenging rival. Mikel Arteta’s side didn’t lose any ground to Chelsea last weekend but they didn’t gain any, either. They’ll be looking for more at Villa Park.
Villa have won 7 of their last 8 matches in the Premier League, including a 4-3 thriller against Brighton midweek in which they came back from going 2-0 down before the match was 30 minutes old. Their lone loss over that spell came against Liverpool. This season, they’ve been playing a particularly open brand of football that has led to back-and-forth, dramatic matches. I don’t think Arsenal will want to oblige them into that style.
The stats say that Villa are due for a regression. They’re over-performing their xG and xGA. They sit third in the table despite managing a positive xG difference in two matches this season and both cases were less than 0.5 xG — Arsenal, by comparison, have had 9 matches with greater than 1.0 xG diff. Put differently, Aston Villa are winning close games and winning when you’d expect them not to. They’re undoubtedly being helped by the nine goals they’ve scored from outside the penalty area, most in the Premier League.
As we know from Unai Emery’s time at the helm in North London, you can only outrun the stats for so long. It’s great while it’s happening! Emery’s Arsenal went on a 20+ match unbeaten run. But eventually, it comes crashing down, and when the underlying football isn’t great, it crashes hard. There’s nothing to say that Villa won’t keep up the stats-defying play against Arsenal, but those stats do indicate that Villa are maybe not quite as good as their record and position in the table indicate.
I’m not sure how much that all matters in the grand scheme of things, though. They’re going to play Arsenal tough. Today’s match is their mid-season Super Bowl (as it was with Chelsea last weekend). If Villa lose to Arsenal, they fall nine points adrift. On the other hand, if they win, they pull to within three points and will feel they’re right in the thick of the title-chase.
The Gunners have won just one of their last four Premier League matches against Aston Villa (1W, 1D, 2L). We (more than) owe them one. That will be made tougher by Arsenal’s injury list. We can’t have a fit roster in North London, no. It has to be one position group or another getting slammed by injuries. Just as the Gunners start to get attackers back in the fold, the centerbacks take a hit. Gabriel is out until the end of the month / into January. Cristhian Mosquera, who was forced off against Brentford through injury, is out 6 weeks with an ankle problem. William Saliba is day-to-day. Kai Havertz is still a few weeks away after a setback in his recovery. Gabriel Jesus was on the bench against Brentford but has yet to feature in a match. Leandro Trossard is day-to-day. Declan Rice is dealing with a calf issue that forced him off the pitch against Brentford, but there were indications that he’ll be good to go.
Tyrone Mings (thigh – 4 weeks) and Ross Barkley (knee – 8 to 12 weeks) are both out for Aston Villa. Emi Martinez is a doubt after being withdrawn from the starting lineup with back pain significant enough that he couldn’t take the warmup against Brighton.
Lineups will be posted when available.
WHO: Arsenal at Aston Villa
WHAT: Premier League MD15
WHERE: Villa Park, Birmingham
WHEN: Saturday, December 6th 4:30 am PT | 7:30 am ET | 12:30 pm GMT
HOW TO WATCH: USA and Telemundo. Streaming on NBCSports.com
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