EPL: Match Preview - Arsenal vs Aston Villa
I’m sure that all Arsenal supporters alike a few months ago couldn’t wait for the start of the new season. After finishing impressively to claim the 4th place trophy last season and with a widely reported £70m war chest at Wenger’s disposal, I for one couldn’t foresee such an abject and disillusioned feel around Arsenal fans. I came into this season feeling incredibly optimistic, hoping that come 17th August we would have an already improved squad ready to challenge for that title. Instead it is now the 16th of August and we barely have enough senior players to field a starting XI.
Anyway, I’m here to write a preview of tomorrow’s game not bleat on about how poor our summer business has been so far. Luckily the fixture list has been relatively kind to us and has given us a home tie against Villa to start with.
Villa have been relatively busy themselves and have bought in a total of 5 names, spending £13.5m so far. Don’t I wish Wenger…. Shut up Lewis, this is supposed to be a preview not a rant. Anyway.. I was talking about Villa’s activity in the transfer window which looks even more impressive as they managed to keep hold of their extremely talented talisman
Christian Benteke, which must be a huge moral boost for the rest of their squad and almost like a new signing as Wenger would say. Paul Lambert has bought in some relatively unknown names to English football, and has stuck to his youth policy. New signings include a young Spanish left back from Sevilla called Antonio Lupe Rodriguez (£2m), 22 year old Danish striker Nicklas Helenius from Aab (£2m), 23 year old Bulgarian international winger Alexsandar Tonev from Lech Poznan (£2.5m), Dutch U21 Winger, Leandro Bacuna from FC Groningen (£3m) and Ivory Coast born Danish Centre Back Jores Okore from Danish side Nordsjaelland (£4m). I would love to tell you how rubbish these players are so it’s going to be piss easy for us on Saturday, but I can’t because secretly I’ve only heard of Tonev.
One thing is more certain Lambert puts incredible faith into youth in his sides and seems to have an eye for overseas and domestic talent, so don’t be surprised to see a few of these players have excellent seasons, hopefully starting after the game on Saturday. Last season Lambert adopted a very open and attacking style in the Premier League and at times got a lot of stick for his ultra-attacking set up and his lack of defensive priority. In the end it was enough and his philosophy came through.
I see no reason as to why Lambert’s philosophy won’t change this season so I expect Villa to try to come and play and hit us on the counter attack which they are very capable of doing. Villa had a relatively decent pre-season in terms of results, recording victories in their last 4 friendlies, including an impressive 3-2 win over Malaga on Saturday. A double from Benteke secured a win for Villa in their final pre-season game.
Last season the two meetings between Arsenal and Villa were pretty intense affairs, with a 0-0 draw at Villa Park in November and an 85th minute winner from Cazorla secured a 2-1 victory for Arsenal at the Emirates in February.
Last 5 meetings
Arsenal 2-1 Villa
Villa 0-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 3-0 Villa
Arsenal 3-2 Villa
Villa 1-2 Arsenal
The last time Villa beat Arsenal was in May 2011 where 2 early Darren Bent goals put Arsenal to the sword at the Emirates. Since then Arsenal are unbeaten in 5 against Villa and have won 4 of those 5. Coincidentall, Villa were the visitors in Arsenal’s first ever Premier League game at the Emirates in the 06/07 season, Gilberto Silva’s late goal rescued a point for us that afternoon. Since moving to the Emirates, Arsenal has played Villa a total of 8 home games against Villa winning 4, drawing 2 and suffering the 2 defeats.
As mentioned previously Arsenal barely have enough players to field a starting XI, however we should still be able to field a relatively strong team, it’s just on the bench we will have to rely on some of the youngsters, hopefully we can get the job done with the first XI on the pitch. With Sagna and Cazorla both doubtful for the game against Villa, as well as Arteta apparently being ruled out for 4-6 weeks (depending on what you read) starts for Jenkinson and Wilshere could be on the cards. Monreal is due to start training next week with the squad and Vermaelen could well be about for several weeks, which leaves us worryingly short of defensive options.
Possible starting XI –
Szczesny, Gibbs, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Jenkinson, Ramsey, Wilshere, Rosicky, Chamberlain, Walcott, Giroud
With the players available to us I think that is quite an accurate line up, of course if Sagna and Cazorla are passed fit then they would replace Jenkinson and Chamberlain respectively. There could be room in the squad for youngsters Zelalem, Akpom and possibly Bellerin since we’re so short of defensive cover. What we have should be enough to see off a very young Villa side and secure 3 points on the opening day. One thing that will be interesting to see will be how Ramsey and Wilshere (if of course they do play together Saturday) will do in the centre of the park. With Arteta pretty much being an ever present in his 2 years at the club, there hasn’t been too many times we’ve been able to see a Wilshere/Ramsey combination in that double pivot.
Lewbob’s prediction – Arsenal 3-1 Villa
Thanks for reading.