On the face of it, Arsenal should have no problem recording a home win over our Premier League opponents Aston Villa on Sunday. While Arsene Wenger and the players seem to have put our early season wobbles behind us and tapped into a rich vein of form, Paul Lambert and his team have been having a nightmare.
Despite a great start which saw then take 10 points from the first four EPL games, including a win over Liverpool, they are now languishing just three points above the drop zone. And the reason is not hard to see, because they have only scored 14 goals in all competitions, four fewer than Alexis Sanchez has managed on his own.
But Wenger has warned his players not to underestimate the Villa forwards as they all have the potential to hurt us. They have been dogged with injuries and not one of their strikers has scored more than four so far, but we all know what Christian Benteke can do because he has done it to us before. Gabriel Agbonlahor is just back in the team and his pace, power, footwork and finishing can be very hard to deal with.
They also have a good striker in Weimann and now have the creativity of their new signing Carles Gil from La Liga to create things for them. We should be able to cope and cause plenty of problems at the other end but not if we are not focused. Will Wenger’s warning be heeded?