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Confirmed Arsenal team to face Aston Villa – Raya in goal

Arsenal need to beat Aston Villa today to regain the top spot from Liverpool and this is the team that Mikel Arteta has selected to achieve that.

This morning, Arsenal led the Premier League standings. However, Liverpool’s victory in the early afternoon match against Crystal Palace has propelled the Reds to the top by a single point, with a two-goal difference over the Gunners. Therefore, only a win will enable the lads to reclaim the summit.

However, Villa will not be an easy opponent to overcome; they have won 14 consecutive matches at home. Even though Arsenal was the last team to secure a victory at Villa Park, achieving a win will be a significant challenge.

Villa dominated Manchester City in their recent midweek match, boosting their confidence. Undoubtedly, their fans will be vocal and passionate. Despite this, we are currently in great form, and if we play to our true ability, there is more than a good chance that we will secure all three points.

 

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Tags Aston Villa v Arsenal

128 Comments

  2. So the big German is back in the starting line up, Rice got to play in the # 6 role for us to leave with all the spoils

  3. Zichenko is my worry. He could be targeted he is weak defensively and not pacey. I thought Arteta would use Kiwior. But I remain optimistic. I also hope White pays more attention to his defensive duties than his marauding runs on the wings. Villa would be tough. My take is if you can’t win it, don’t lose it!

    1. Don’t know why Arteta keeps persevering with the Zinchenko experiment . Can’t defend and doesn’t track back

  8. The pressure is now on the Gunners to retake the control to top the Epl table.. After the Reds had taken away the control of it from them with a 1-2 match win away to Crystal Palace early today’s afternoon.
    And I think and also believe the Gunners will undoubtedly retake the control of the league fron the hands of the Reds. Who are currently in control of it. With a 0-3 match win away to the Villains at their Villa Park Stadium backyard are the Gunners going to to retake the control of the league to go top on it this night unfailingly.

  13. The pressure is now on the Gunners to retake the control to top the Epl table.. After the Reds had taken away the control of it from them with a 1-2 match win away to Crystal Palace early today’s afternoon.
    And I think and also believe that the Gunners will undoubtedly retake the control of the league fron the hands of the Reds who are currently in control of it. With a 0-3 match win away to the Villains at their Villa Park Stadium backyard are the Gunners going to retake the control of the league to go top on it this night unfailingly.

  14. Starting Zinchenko in a game such as this, where need solidity at the back is always a risk.
    And it had been brought to fore once again.
    Just as in the Chelsea game.

  17. Unai Emery’s tactics are spot on at the moment
    Tielamans is man marking Zinchenko and suffocating Zinchenko’s passing through midfield

  24. We have improve significantly since going behind, a much better account of ourselves than the Citizens did.

  26. Something not clicking in attack tonight. Saka looks a yard short. Zinchonko hasn’tbeen great. A bit of flapping at the back. But I do feel we can still win it based on the chances we’ve have and the possession. I think tiredness is playing a part though. We just need to put an extra bit of energy and concentration in. Villa be tired too in the second half. COYG!

  27. I still believe this our midfield setup is only good for teams that sit back or when we are chasing the game. I like that we are slowing things down and exercising patience but we shouldn’t be starting these games with this midfield setup

  28. Odegaard should have done better with his chance. Saliba seems nervous of his goalkeeper and we have had a decent degree of possession and attacking- sadly finding it hard to make it count within the last third

    1. Surely Odegaard should have done better, his effort to Martinez right was too predictable, anything to the Argentinan left would have been much more dangerous even a mild deflection

  29. So much negativity and I don’t know why. We should have at least scored 2 goals in all honest and its unfortunate that some of us here can’t see that…….I remain optimistic we should at least get a draw. Villa isn’t dominating as they did with City

  31. Arsenal made too many misplaced passes and rushed long balls, as if they played at Anfield

    Arteta still used the same tactic despite having watched Aston Villa vs Man City game

    Aston Villa just relied on Bailey/ Digne and their excellent hold-up play to penetrate our defense from the wings

    Odegaard/ Saka should make long diagonal crosses to Havertz and Rice/ Zinchenko/ Odegaard/ White should make more long shots to test Martinez

  32. Am not worried one bit, am certain as night will turn to day, this game has several more goals in it

  33. I like Zinchenko, but as a full back he’s a liability. Midfield is his best position. Kiwior should come on for the second half.

  35. Trouble is as soon as we get into the penalty area we faff about. The way to beat that Martinez is to shoot straight away, not give him time to think about where the player will put it.

  36. We need to keep the same pace and energy just be more clinical. Could have easily been 2-1 up with the chances we created.

    If saka brings the heat in the 2nd half we will come back.

  37. Not enough competiton in the team. Squad players don’t push hard enough. Odegaard having another one of those days where he’s just terrible. Pep has subbed off KBD for other creatives. What about us? Odegaard the only creative player in the whole squad.

  38. Is it that Arteta can not tell Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus to pass the ball to the right players than to lose the ball stupidly?

  45. Massive letdown Odegaard has been today. And Arteta needs to question if Martinelli should be an automatic starter. Hasn’t delivered the goods this season, has he? There’s still at least one goal in this game for us tho. We need an extra dose of the never say die attitude today. Shame, because villa there for the taking today

    1. Looks that way. We’ve been competitive but we we’ve lacked the quality in the final third today. Still time I guess.

    3. All villa did was have a fast start. Don’t get how we concede so early and have no intensity early in matches anymore. We deserve to drop if we rely on late goals.

  50. What is Jesus doing? Awful from him today. I just don’t understand how all our attackers are this poor today. I really don’t

  52. Villa are totally committed to the cause so possession without anything close to the desired end result is an opportunity wasted

    1. Certainly apart from Trossard we were thin
      Did Tomi being injured put us under too much pressure or was it the total lack of anything close to FINISHING

    2. Certainly apart from Trossard in general terms we were thin in terms of a decent bench. I don’t think Nketiah or RN are the answer
      Did Tomi being injured put us under too much pressure or was it the total lack of anything close to FINISHING?

  55. Martineli was the only attacker that showed up today and we took him off. No supprise we haven’t created a single chance since then.

  58. Player ratings will be interesting today because I doubt many will be over 5. Maybe Saliba gets 7. The rest have been very average.

      2. I thought it was arms and shoulders all round. But not our day by the looks of things … for all sorts of reasons

    1. ??? Did you miss the several times it hits Kai’s hand? You can’t score directly from a handball even if it’s by accident

        1. if it was in the opposite box and they were reviewing a penalty that would matter. But for goals, it cannot touch your hand/arm at all if you are the goal scorer. This is one of the few things VAR has been consistent with. Also his arms were slightly raised

          1. such a stupid rule. you can not have differing rules around handball. no wonder no one has a clue anymore

            1. It clearly hit Cash’s arm first. If that’s OK then any touch on Havertz’s arm should be OK also. Havertz didn’t play at the ball with his arm and there was plenty of doubt it even touched his arm.

              Stupid rule it should be the same for both attack and defence.

      2. Other teams no problem ffs have some balls about you, how many more shit decision should we get before we say something which will help the change

        1. Makes no sense to be angry at me. Be angry at the rules of the game. Refs went by the rules of the game too.

  63. Awful performance

    Too many whiners spending too long on the floor

    And don’t blame var we had enough chances

    No chance on winning the league

    Bottlers

      1. You took the words out of my mouth Angelo, comments like those are quite pathetic but in fact I assume a lot of these negative comments come from 12 year olds.

  65. Arteta not looking happy. Shocking result but have to say we were so so poor. Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard, Jesus, Rice and Zinchenko all performed badly today. Putting it down to tiredness might help explain it but Villa should he equally tired, too.

  68. This team has been playing like robots, they have been coached to play in a particular way, no room for expression. This is so frustrating.

  69. 1.Arsenal should sign Victor Osimhen in January. Even a loan Deal. We need a better CF in the team.
    2. Our wide players should cross the ball more often to Havertz. Lessons learnt from this game.

    1. Outplayed?
      What game did you watch??

      We outplayed Villa and totally controlled the match. Villa defended well, however we broke through numerous times but got nothing from the game because of poor finishing (the Captain missed two clear chances).

      We should have gotten at least a point. That much we deserved.

      1. @E.Anderson
        Having the lions share of possession, is not equivalent to outplaying your opponents. They had the superior goalkeeper, defended well, dug in and put the ball in the back of the net. Something we failed to do. That’s what matters. Jus sayin

        1. Agreed.
          At the end of the day, all that matters is the result. They scored the all important goal and put in a brilliant defensive shift.

          However, equating that to ‘outplaying’ us was a bit of a stretch in my view.
          Also, We didn’t just boss possession. We were in control all game, and created and MISSED several good chances. We even got unlucky with the handball during the goal mouth scramble.
          We were totally abysmal in the final third today. All attackers.

          Again, you’re right – ultimately, they scored, we didn’t. They won the game.

      1. @GB
        You have to learn the difference between not taking chances and coming up against a world class keeper. Jus sayin

    3. We were’nt outplayed mate. I can go as far as saying we gave them the match. They’re nothing special.

        1. Don’t worry about me, i’ll sleep like a baby cos i’ve got nothing to worry about as far as our tittle chances are concerned cos your almighty Villa led by Unai don’t cut it. we literally handed the game to them, i was even expecting a tougher game.

  71. Well I and DAN ALMOST ALONE, GOT OUR PREDICTION OF A LOSS CORRECT, UNLESS WE SCORE VERY LATE ON WHICH LOOKS UNLIKELY

  73. All i can deduce from tonight’s game is that Unai’s Villa are NOT tittle contenders, a stun as expected but congrats to them and welcome to the Emirates in advance.

  74. Pathetic weak spineless bottle jobs from manager down to the players never ever will this team win the prem league had a massive opportunity to go 8 clear of city but completely bottled it as per usual they don’t know how to grind out a win when it matters most and that’s the difference between winning trophies or not and afraid to say this team doesn’t have what it takes to win major trophies!

    2. Take it easy. The season is still long. Give the team some credit. A learning curve it is. We will win a trophy this season

  76. All i see is this team not having the mentality of being a champion yet, because we apparently afforded too much respect to the villains. Very ver try poor performance today.

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