Aston Villa welcome Arsenal to Villa Park as another big weekend of Premier League action kicks off.
Victory will send Villa above Tottenham into eighth whereas Arsenal can leapfrog Villa with a win and themselves go eighth.
Team News
Aston Villa have no fresh injury concerns to report as Wesley (knee) and Kortney Hause (foot) remain sidelined.
Arsenal will be without David Luiz and Bernd Leno after their red cards in a 2-1 defeat at Wolves on Tuesday.
Matt Ryan (muscle) is a doubt along with Pablo Mari (calf) whilst Kiernan Tierney is still ruled out with his calf injury.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa have won two of last five meetings against Arsenal (W2, L3).
- Arsenal have taken ten points from their last five trips to Villa Park (W3, D1, L1).
- Villa haven’t done a league double over Arsenal since 1992-93 season.
- Alexandre Lacazette has produced more shots on target this season than any other Arsenal player, having produced 21 shots on goal in 19 league appearances.
- No Villa player has made more clearances in their 21 league games so far this season than Tyrone Mings, who has made 85 clearances in 19 appearances.
Prediction
Villa were simply outplayed by West Ham on Wednesday both creatively and on pace but they must put that result behind them and start afresh, because another defeat here would see their chances at Europa qualification.
Arsenal meanwhile have lost two key parts of their defence in Luiz and Leno which is worsened by the fact that Tierney is absent, yet they looked strong at Wolves until those two red cards saw them implode but they did a solid job to not lose by more goals than they did.
Both teams therefore do have work to do but if Alex Gunnarson is in goal for the Gunners, you have to fancy Villa to come out and really test him if able to get on the front foot given their attacking quality but I can see a draw coming here given Arsenal’s improved confidence.
Prediction: Aston Villa 1-1 Arsenal
Result: Aston Villa 1-0 Arsenal