Happy match day folks – hope we’re all good?

Well, I say “happy” match day, but we all know that is predicated on whether Arsenal can collect all three points tonight against a red-hot Aston Villa on fine form at the moment, and going into this game feeling like they can beat anybody. And they have proven they can so far with 11 wins in a row, including against us, as well as having beaten City at home too. Arsenal must be super mindful of that, and as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Villa also have a pretty good record at our gaff, so they’ll be feeling it a bit tonight, I suspect.

I had a look back at that game and Villa’s star men on the day – according to SofaScore – were Emi Martinez, Matt Cash and Boubacar Kamara. Two of those three are not in the team this evening due to suspension, so that hopefully has to be good news for us. Cash is key to how Villa attack and was the goalscorer in the first half as Eze switched off at the back post, whilst Kamara is one of Villa’s key passing triggers; he ranks in the 80+ percentile of all footballers on Fbref for his passes attempted, pass completion and progressive passes from his deeper-lying position. He’s also in the 90th percentile for clearances and aerial duels won, so there’s no doubt they’re missing a key cog this evening against us. Their replacements – Bogarde and Onana offer me mixed insight. Onana has always felt like an impressive ball-winning midfielder, so it doesn’t feel like a massive drop down in quality, but Bogarde has only started three games in the Premier League and got himself just 331 minutes with two yellow cards. He’s a young defender and so that is an area tonight that I am hoping we can exploit.

And with Saka on the other flank, as an Arsenal fan, you have to be looking at our wings being the key to getting joy from what I think will be a mid-to-low block from Villa. I think they’ll view us and Chelsea in a similar light, and I’ve read a few comments from Villa fans stating that they weren’t great in the first half, as Chelsea put on the pressure. So I am expecting them to be cautious, to try to limit us in the first half, slow the game down and then look to replicate the approach by switching system and playing staff in the second half.

Which is why I think he’ll go with Trossard again, even though Martinelli might be a tempting option. But if somebody like Martinelli would be good in small patches, you think that having him come on to run at that full back with 20 minutes to go might be something that occupies Villa’s thoughts.

So my expected team line-up for tonight is:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

There have been some questions about Gyokeres and in the Same Old Arsenal pod we did on Sunday James advocated bringing in Jesus, but I don’t think Arteta will do that just yet. I’m not 100% certain of that, but I think he might see if Gyokeres can give a little more against this Villa side. I think he was better against Brighton and got a couple of decent shots off, as well as a tame one in the opening minutes, but I think Arteta will be hoping that he can fashion a little more space and even if he doesn’t, his running and preoccupation of centre halves, could well be beneficial if the flanks are due to be a big part of this game.

The other question mark will be at the back, for which we haven’t been any news on Timber and Calafiori. My hope is that it has just been minor precautionary knocks and the players, with an extra couple of days, have recovered from them. Arteta spoke about them both after the Brighton game and it didn’t sound like he was overly worried, just a bit bemused, so I hope the coaching team just had some overly cautious thoughts given the volume of injuries we’ve had this season. If neither of those two are available, it does present somewhat of a challenge, mainly at right back, because on the left he could put either MLS or Hincapie in. But on the right, do you really want to drop in Rice again? He was great n’all against Brighton, but in a game like this against an opponent like Villa, you want as manby players playing in their natural positions as possible.

I said I had a look at this game last time out at Villa Park and I looked at both line ups and the stats. We fielded Timber and Hincapie as our centre halves and were in the process of running Ben White in to the ground. Eze started on the left and was caught napping for their first goal, whilst Merino up top offered basically close to nothing. Tonight’s team – if it resembles the one I have picked above – would be, you would hope, a lot more formidable for Villa and given we gave them such an even game away from home and the numbers suggest we were unlucky to lose in the dying seconds (it was pretty much even on most of the stats you look at), my hope for tonight is that we see an Arsenal side with their swagger back. We haven’t seen it for a while but it did feel like we had started to recover that feeling of being able to dominiate and suffocate teams against Brighton until they scored their goal against the run of play.

That’s what we have to get to tonight. Fingers crossed we can.

Right, I’ll call it a day there and will be back tomorrow with some more thoughts. Have yourselves a good one kids.