Finally!!!!! Football is back tonight. Feels like an eternity since our opener against Coventry, with every team playing twice since then, but the wait is now over and it’s time for Arsenal to show what they’re about again.
The match
It’s a hard one to call this. If you’d watched how Arsenal played against Coventry and how Aston Villa played against Brighton, you could be forgiven to think that this will be an easy win for Arsenal, but there is context to both games that need to be taken into account.
First of all, Arsenal were playing against a promoted team and were always likely to take all three points, dominate the ball and all that good stuff. On the flip side, Villa had a tricky looking away game in which they came into during a turbulent time with players seemingly on strike, one or two with a foot out of the door and just generally a whirlwind of uncertainty surrounding them. Fast forward 7 days and the look a lot more settled have two new signings included in the squad and generally look a much more stern test for Arsenal this evening.
There was hope that Arsenal might have been busy in the transfer window between the end of the Coventry game and the start of this one, but it’s all been going one way unfortunately, with the likes of Reiss Nelson, Fabio Vieira, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli all either on the way out or already left. The star signing forward has yet to materialise and at the time of writing, this seems very unlikely, so I think what we’ve got now, is what we’re left with, until January at least.
The lineup
The big question that’s probably on the minds of both Arsenal and Villa fans is, will Ezri Konsa make his debut for Arsenal in the centre of Arsenal’s defence. I’ve seen a lot of fans questioning why Cristian Mosquera deserves to lose his place in the team, which I think is entirely fair given how he played against Coventry. That said, you don’t buy a centre half for £51m and leave him on the bench or at least, Arsenal don’t. I could be completely wrong on this, but wouldn’t that make him Arsenal’s most expensive defender of all time? Yeah, he’s starts this one.
The rest of the team picks itself for me. Bruno Guimaraes seems to be coming back to fitness and should make the bench, but I think rushing him back into the starting eleven would be really risky, so Myles Lewis-Skelly should keep his place in midfield. The rest of the team, will be the same as it was against Coventry.
Predicted lineup:
Raya
White
Konsa
Gabriel
Calafiori
Rice
Lewis-Skelly
Odegaard
Saka
Havertz
Tzolis
Subs:
Arrizabalaga
Hincapie
Mosquera
Zubimendi
Guimaraes
Merino
Eze
Gyokeres
Madueke
What I’m looking forward to
Other than football being back and getting to watch The Great Arsenal play again, I’m looking forward to see if our exciting, attacking play from the Coventry and Community Shield games carries over onto what’s, on paper, a more tricky looking game against a team that we have struggled against in recent times. That probably sounds a bit mad, considering we went out and attacked City and they are currently a visibly stronger side than Villa, so I’ll explain what I mean.
Villa away is the sort of game where it feels like Mikel Arteta will be really tempted to just sink back into old habits and return to what appears to be a ‘clean sheet first’ approach to the game. It’s a tricky old away day at Villa Park, one of the trickiest in my opinion, so you could probably forgive Arteta for setting up for a clean sheet first and worrying about attacking later. I’m therefore excited to see if we really have turned a corner in how we approach games of this nature. It’s alright attacking at home to Coventry, let’s see if they can show the same ambition and invention during tonight’s game.
Prediction
Despite our rocky recent record at Villa over the past few seasons, I’m backing the Gunners to turn that around tonight and take this one 2-0. Not going to be easy, but I think we’ll have enough to get us over the line.