Arsenal return to Premier League action this evening when they face Aston Villa at Villa Park, looking to maintain their perfect start to the new season.
Mikel Arteta’s side have had a 10-day break since their 3-0 victory over Coventry City, giving the Gunners plenty of time to prepare for what should be a much tougher examination away from home.
Villa, meanwhile, will be looking for a response after suffering a 4-0 defeat against Brighton in their opening Premier League fixture.
Arteta names his Arsenal team
There were several interesting selection decisions for Arteta ahead of tonight’s game.
Bruno Guimaraes returned to training after missing the Coventry victory with a groin problem, while new signing Ezri Konsa was available to make his Arsenal debut against the club he recently left.
Jurrien Timber has been continuing his rehabilitation from a groin injury, while William Saliba remains an injury concern as he recovers from his longer-term back problem.
Here is the confirmed Arsenal team to face Aston Villa:
Confirmed Arsenal Team
🟡 𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗠𝙉𝙀𝙒𝙎 🔵
Unchanged for Monday night football 🔐
🤝 Presented by @deel pic.twitter.com/ptvpKHDahn
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) August 31, 2026
Arsenal looking to make it two wins from two
Despite Villa’s difficult opening result, Arsenal should not underestimate Unai Emery’s side at Villa Park.
The Midlands club have undergone significant changes during the summer and Emery will be determined to get a reaction from his players in front of their own supporters.
Recent history also provides a warning for Arsenal. Villa have won four of their seven home Premier League meetings with the Gunners since returning to the top flight in 2019.
However, Arteta’s men arrive with confidence following their opening victory and will be looking to impose themselves from the start.
Three points tonight would maintain Arsenal’s 100 per cent Premier League record and provide the champions with their first away victory of the new campaign.
What do you think of Arteta’s team, Gooners? Has he picked the strongest XI available, and what is your score prediction for Aston Villa v Arsenal? Let us know in the comments.
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No surprises
Unchanged from last game, and a strong bench. Let’s go win the game, won’t be easy, it’s never been easy. The boys need to really show up. 3- 0 to the Gunners
Just look at our bench.
We are in a good place.
Disappointed that there’s no Dowman on the bench.
Just off topic, but I’ve just read on the BBC Website that Spurs are trying to take Mudryk on a season long loan.
I thought it was only Arsenal who did last minute deals with Chelsea. 😂
I think Spuds have had players sold to them by intermediaries, and jumped at the chance to make signings. Have they raised their levels, or just bought a much of a muchness whichever 11 they pick?
One supposes their manager who comes with “a reputation “ had more than a passing suggestion
I’m not sure about him. It hasn’t always worked out for him, like at Marseille.
And sometimes when a manager wants to step up a grade, they agree to DOF and recruitment teams having too much power.
…as iv said Ben (already) Ben White and J Timber are two-sides of one and the same coin… we are fortunate to retain both. Also its encouraging to see Odegaard return to the player we’d all grown
to value and respect.
Is Villa Park a potential Banana skin? It shouldn’t be… not any more…Look at our bench: #COYG!
Oops – feel free to delete any duplication/ Thanks
…as iv said Ben (already) Ben White and J Timber are two-sides of one and the same coin… we are fortunate to retain both. Also its encouraging to see Odegaard return to the player we’d all grown
to value and respect.
Is Villa Park a potential Banana skin? It shouldn’t be… not any more…Look at our bench: #COYG!
After what happened to them at Brighton, i think Villa will be very reluctant to play out from the back,and I expect them to hit more long balls with the speedy Jackson running the lines.No room for complacency against Villa who may be weakened by the loss of their top players, but are still formidable at home.That said, i expect us to get the 3 points.
The bench is ridiculous
And Villa squad decimated
It never felt difficult like these Villa games have felt in recent years.
It will be very interesting to see when and who MA makes his substitutions.
That empty stand gives me covid PTSD.
Exactly man,i thought i was the only one thinking so
Villa are fired up.
As they usually are against Arsenal
Take Tzolis off
I guess for Eze ?
@Dan
Dude is a lightweight, with zero pace. Not to mention, he can’t beat his man.
Still can’t believe we let Trossard and Martinelli go without sufficient replacements. Tzolis is struggling today for sure.
Poor, Haverz, Tzolis, Saka and Odergaard have been poor. White looks like he is spaced out and its all too slow and lacking endeavour.
Build up play seems far too slow, but the 2nd half can’t be nowhere near as poor as the 1st. We seem to lack urgency and energy and with over a week since we last played is alarming
Could’ve been ahead by now given a Trossard or Martinelli, fgs get some decent forwards.
Difficult watch so far
Sloppy and slow passing in final third. Ode, saka Tzolis not in stride. Ben White hasn’t got any pass right going forward. We need a massive improvement second half if we gonna get the three points.
Ben White could have ran on to two good passes from Odegaard but just stood still. Spaced out sums him up..
This same team conceded 3 goals in 20 minutes against BHA before red card.
Why are we stooping to their level?
Gyokeres is better suited to Villa’s high defensive line, I think.
Also Cash is currently getting the better of Tzolis, and will try to unsettle him the more if Arteta doesn’t do something about it
That wasn’t a great half was it? Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble but we don’t look like champions tonight!
Looks like Arteta smashed the self-destruct button by shipping off Trossard and Martinelli.
Why do we have a Sporting Director?
Ars need a speedy LW, maybe hijacked Barcola at this point
I don’t know any player apart from Messi that won’t be be poor in a match where the tactics gave opponent tons of chance and time to reshape and reorganize.
Eze it is then..
Oh for a brain dead LW 🙈
Eze did well
Starboy!!
FINALLY
Should not have sold Martinelli unless we had someone better lined up. Eze and Madueke can’t hold down the LW, we saw that last year.
Wasted time on Alvarez when he said not interested, Rodgers is gone, Barcola gone, Vini jr never happening, now we’re looking like panic buying.
Eze and Madueke on the LW is not what champions are made of.
I hope we address this, even with a loan, or LW will continue to be a problem going on 3 years now.
There is only 1 possible reason why Villa don’t have a single yellow card yet despite all their fouls
Ben White is a week behind everything that’s happening..
Cannot rely on Eze. Tzolis less convincing tonight. Need reinforcement on the left.
I thought Eze played well when he came on.
Yes made a difference, but he has been very inconsistent since joining.
The ref is terrible but we need to upgrade the left wing badly
Hopefully all of us can agree now that we need attacking reinforcements?!
Especially when the gaffer himself seems to lack confidence in Gyokeres.
Agreed. We need a replacement for Martinelli and a top striker!
I forsee danger. We sold two of our best LW without a replacement, now we try to play Eze as a LW but he is failing. We break the team instead of building it.
Failing? LOL.
People forget how average martinelli was in most games recently – chances are he wouldn’t have played better than tsolis and certainly not eze tonight. Don’t like saying it, because he worked harder than anyone, but he wasn’t going to improve things tonight (not that we were that bad from what I saw).
I think calafiori is a special player – can’t think of anyone similar – his movement is so smart in attacking situations, plus he has the pace, power and bravery to make incisive runs, and has the composure to make those runs count quite often, all while being a very solid defender who might even be more comfortable at centre back than left back. Top player
I think we missed Trossard tonight😂😂
No sense doubting Tzolis – every player struggles from time to time. HE’S NEW and he’s not cost us.
Bottom line we found a way – And we have others
(speculatively) to come in.
Try to be happy, we didn’t wobble, rather we Won and we’re gonna be ok (again). Congratulations to all Gunners… Living the Dream 🙂 .
Cash just introduced him to the PL. Tzolis will learn and most refs will not let defenders completely get away with the bully treatment. Most players were just a little off today (especially in the first half) and credit to AV in that they played hard in front of their home fans. We were lucky McGinn ultimately didn’t injure anyone except maybe the refs ear from his constant complaining.
Eze was good on the left as was the excellent Calafiori, great team performance against a hurt Leicester team. Our defence is so good and overall a very good win.
You are about 60 ish miles out 😂😂😂
‘Leicester’?
For God’s sake, is Havertz better than Gyokeres? The guy was useless today, yet Gyokeres was not brought in. Is he injured or what? If the urgency given to signing a defensive cover was given to getting a left wing Attack, we wouldn’t be where we are today. I hope Arteta has it all sorted out, because what happened tonight was scary. If we play like this against Chelsea, it’s going to be a sorry case. We were lucky today that Villa’s attacks were blunt, it would be a different ball game against a sharp attack. It was just a lucky victory and not deserved to be honest. I’m really not looking forward to the game against Chelsea.
What an awful refereeing performance – talk about a “homer!!”
As so many have said already, letting Martinelli and Trossard leave without replacing them is questionable and to believe that Tzolis was the answer after just two competitive games was shown to be premature at the least!!
Hopefully we will play much much better against chelsea – if we don’t then we will get a hiding.
Just a thought, why not try Califiori on the LW and bring in Hincapie at LB?
@ken1945
Califiori at LW. Brilliant option…👍🏾
👍NY_Gunner
Can’t believe those above criticizing the ref What were they expecting, every 50/50 call to go Arsenal’s way. I thought he got just about all his decisions right. If the referees are under instruction to cut down on “soft” fouls and allow the game to flow, then we have to expect that not every call will go our way. Many did though. Bruno made a big difference when he came on which was encouraging. Tzolis is not going to work out every game. He is slow and doesn’t have Martinelli s ability to get into good positions. There will be games though which will be cut out for his particular style of cultured passing. It’s up to the manager to rotate and know when to make changes. The same goes for Odegard and also Harvetz.
The ref was fine, I never thought he was a homer? He gave us a penalty that turned out wasn’t, so unfounded for me. He could have been a proper homer and sent Tzolis off for two yellows but didn’t. I never saw anything untowards.
Job done but that was a slog, we couldn’t kill Villa off and kept them in it right until the end, could have cost us with wasteful finishing from Havertz, although he looked slightly offside he still should have buried that one on one. Hopefully Arteta has someone lined up to come in before the window closes, I don’t fancy us to score many if it’s one of Havertz and Gyokeres up front all season, still the defence is rock solid so if it’s 1-0 to the Arsenal every week I can’t complain about that.
I expected Villa to be weaker than they were especially after their first game. Complacency on our part? Never underestimate the opposition
Yep. Seems a Villa organized by Emery is still tough at home, even if they lost six of their team from last year. Maybe the Brighton game gave them the kick in the pants they needed. Their new players did pretty well, I will say.
I said before this game, that having watched Villa a couple of weeks ago against PSG, it wouldn’t be the pushover that some were expecting.
I think the 1-0 scoreline backed up my claim.
Also my cautious 1-2 prediction. Actually Villa were thrashed 4-0 by Brighton a week ago
Amba,
I notice that apparently the Arsenal women are going to sign a French defender before their window shuts on Thursday.
Ya DEREK due to Leah’s touch and go situation with injury that CB spot needs a cover. This signing is important in that respect. Half a million transfer fee agreed. Btw all this summer signings are seasoned, seniors, ready made players. Don’t take much to gel
Amba,
She could also be cover for the recovering Reed who is recovering from her ACL of last season.