Hello and how are you? Saturday the 6th of December will see the Mighty Cannon take a trip to Villa Park, Birmingham (capacity 42,918) and play against 151 yr old Aston Villa. KO is at 13.30pm Central European time (12.30pm UK time). Expected weather is partly cloudy and 13°(feels like 8°) and between 38-46 % of rain during game-time.
After the Chelsea (offside) crunch, and a solid bounce back beating set-piece Brentford, we now take on Emery’s Villans. Some weeks ago the match might have had a different taste, now its a top of the table clash. Villa now sit in third in the PL and they are: W8 D3 L3 F20 A14. Villa are on a run of good form, six wins in a row.
Down the years Arsenal have played Villa 205 times, won 88, lost 71 and drawn 46.
Sadly in these dark days of modern Yuletide the injuries are piling up and if Declan sits this one out it will be a big blow for us, as the midfield power-house is such an important part of our squad. William Saliba, Cristhian Mosquera and Gabriel Magalhaes look like also missing this clash, which is a turd as these guys are the greatest defence in the PL. But we will still have a great ersatz defence with Ben White playing well in the week and Hincapié and Timber are also top players. Havertz is still AWOL, Trossard, is also doubtful, even so we can still select a formidable line-up. Hopefully we can avoid any more injuries. Please.
Looks like ex- Gunner Martinez will be missing for the Lions, Onana might lose his place to Tielemans,who has been playing well over the last weeks, and Ollie Watkins, John McGinn and Morgan Rogers are all dangermen for Villa. Ross Barkley (knee), Tyrone Mings (thigh) will sit this scrap out.
Statto HQ despite having a hang-over from their office Christmas knees-up,have told me that Villa have a 23.1% chance of winning, and The Gunners are at 49.8%. Next up is a trip to the Belgian city of Bruges and FC Brugge in the Champions League.
So COYG!
Mills
Villa have been doing well of late against the odds. They don’t play well, have a weary xG and allow a lot of chances, but somehow win. This is unsustainable, so let’s be hoping their luck runs out today. We are due a good away performance, the last one I recall being Newcastle?
I’m fairly confident it will be a low scoring affair with them trying to nick it. Anywho, I will be happy with 3 points no matter how we get them, I’ve gone all pragmatic all of a sudden.
Enjoy te game and the weekend.
Pedantic George.