After such a long unbeaten run, Arsenal were finally undone by Wolves on Tuesday due to much discussed refereeing decisions, and now the Gunners need to prove that that was just an anomaly, considering we were so in commend up until the sending off of David Luiz.
But the fact remains that Wolves have done the double over us this season, and we cannot ignore the fact that the Villains beat us very easily at the Emirates as well, and will not be feeling inferior in the slightest.
Their form has been up-and-down lately though, and they were well beaten by West Ham on Wednesday, but as Mikel Arteta says, that doesn’t mean it will be an easy game for the Gunners. The boss told Arsenal.com when asked about Villa’s defeat: “I am not here to judge their performance. They have been fantastic through the season, they have beaten some top teams, they have been on a really strong run and they beat us when he played them at home so we have to make sure that we go there and win the game.”
Villa are only just above us in the table, so a win for us would see us leapfrog our opponents, and we would also go above Tottenham for the first time this season, albeit it may not be for long as the Spuds face West Brom on Sunday.
Our double sending-off against Wolves also means that we will be without David Luiz and Bernd Leno for the game, and it looks like Kieran Tierney, Pablo Mari and Mat Ryan will also still be sidelined, but we should see Aubameyang ready to start at last.
We should have enough firepower to take out the Villains, but we will have to play better than the last time we met them. I dread seeing the reaction if we should lose again…