Villa v Arsenal – a battle of fitness.

Morning all.

West Ham’s Soungoutou Magassa scored in the 83rd minute at Old Trafford to take a point off of Man Utd on Thursday night. Apparently, Amorim had been talking about how he’d stolen rival managers ideas on how to score from set-pieces which was ironic really as West Ham’s equaliser came from a corner.

To think that had Utd held onto their lead, they would have gone 5th in the league shows just how bizarre this season is. Liverpool have been dismal yet they are just 11 points behind us with 24 fixtures left to play. 72 points to play for yet the media think it’s Arsenal’s title to lose. Bonkers.

Sticking with the set-piece theme, Villa’s big midfielder Amadou Onana scored one of their four goals to earn three points against Brighton on Wednesday night. 2-0 down but Villa fought back to win 4-3. Getting maximum points from our game at lunchtime is going to be a tough task.

Mikel Arteta has talked to the media about player fitness although as usual, he’s not really clarified things.

Well, let’s see. We have another training session in the afternoon. Every hour is going to be very important to see the availability of the players. After that, we’ll decide which ones. It is a matter of days with those two (Saliba and Trossard) for  sure. After the training session, we’ll know more. (Mosquera) That’s the more complicated one, but again, we have another test today to see where we are with them. We need to know, because the feeling that we had after the game and yesterday, we need to corroborate with what happens with all the testing that we do today.

In other words, wait and see who is in the squad in a few hours although I’m pretty sure we can rule Mosquera out. Gabriel and Havertz too but the rest, well, things are kind of looking ok, assuming Rice is fit of course. Villa are going through a really good patch having won their last six matches. At home, they’ve lost just once at home since we beat them 2-0 back in  August last year.

Arsenal’s Adrian Clarke:

Emery has mostly used a 4-2-3-1 this season, so it would be a surprise if he moves away from that. We do know that his side will be well organised and aggressive, and when we have possession, they will crowd the middle third with bodies. Villa do hold a high line, and that offside trap could be an area we look to target using runs in behind.

Villa have shown a real liking for netting long-range goals in 2025/26 as nine of their 17 league goals have come from outside the box. That’s a division-high, with an impressive 15 per cent of their attempts from distance finding the back of the net. Some of those blockbusters have come from direct free-kicks, so giving fouls away within Morgan Rogers’ and Emi Buendia’s shooting range might be problematic.

With three goals and three assists, Rogers is unquestionably their dangerman. He has played at No.10 or on the left wing recently so we can’t be sure where he will be deployed, but in the corresponding fixture last season, he showed outstanding power and pace from central areas so my hunch would be that he starts behind Ollie Watkins.

Chance creation has been an issue for our opponents, who rank 15th for expected goals and big chances created, but we must not be fooled by that statistic. Charging up to third in the table, they are playing with lots of self-belief, and they are a seriously tough nut to crack in front of their own fans.

Officials for today’s match are:

Referee: Peter Bankes
Assistants: Eddie Smart, Blake Antrobus
Fourth official: Adam Herczeg
VAR: Darren England
Assistant VAR: Mark Scholes

Both clubs had midweek fixtures so why this fixture needed to be given a lunchtime slot I’ve no idea, not that a few hours would make much difference but there’s bound to be a few tired legs on the pitch. On both sides I hasten to add. On paper it should be a cracker..

Catch up in the comments.