Aston Villa Preview

Friday, 14 November 08, 12:04 AM · Comments(0)

Hello all,

Tomorrow we face Aston Villa so a look ahead to the macth at the Emirates. Villa have been playing well this season, however they have recently suffered back to back defeats at the hands of Middlesborough and Newcastle. Still they are sitting fifth in the league on 20 points, just 3 behind us. Of the other big 4 clubs matches they have played, they lost 2-0 against Chelski at the Bridge and drew 0-0 with Liverpool at Villa Park. O'Neill will no doubt see this match as a fantastic opportunity to draw level with us on points. And this game maybe more difficult than it looks if Villa's previous trips to the Emirates are anything to go by. Two very close 1-1 draws at our stadium is far from a good home record against them. However with Villa's recent form, they may well not be that hard to beat.

Villa will likely try to play their usual style of wide football, crossing into John Carew, who is exceptionally good at heading the ball. So it would be nice if Arsene was to bring in someone like Djourou who is able to deal with headers quite comfortably and would make a nice partnership with Gallas or Toure. That's unlikely though so the real attention turns to whether Wenger will play Toure or not. Gallas and Silvestre seems to be a very good central defensive partnership and it will be interesting to see what Wenger now plans to do with Toure. Surely he won't dump the captain out of the team but will he upset the well-working combination already present. For how much longer can he go on putting the Manc Reject infront of Toure. Well we'll just have to wait and see but my guess is that Wenger will continue on with Gallas and Silvestre and play Toure as a sencond-half substitue. Clichy and Sagna are both fit so there's no question over the full-backs. Meanwhile in goalkeeping we might have Almunia back after his incident with Carrick as he still has to pass a last fitness test, he is apparently 70:30 to return. If not then we will see Fabianski make another appearance in the Arsenal goal, a position which still gives me a mixture of nervousness and wonderment. Moving onto midfield, we will probably see five again considering the lack of options up front, unless Adebayor also passes his fitness test which is apparently 50:50. So it's likely to consist of Walcott back on the right wing, Denilson, Fabregas and Diaby across the centre, probably with Diaby going up supporting the lone striker, and Nasri on the right flank. Bendtner will likely feature in the striker role unless Adebayor is given the all clear, all thought I would personally like to see Vela up in that position after his performance mid-week. I understand it is a different time of match, but I think he is ready for the Premier League.

So our line-up should be something on the lines of:

Almunia

Sagna Gallas Toure Clichy

Walcott Denilson Fabregas Nasri
Diaby

Bendtner

With flanks of Walcott and Nasri, we shouldn't have too much trouble finding motivation to move forward and we should see a few goals in this one. Villa will be tough but I think if the players are up for it, we should see them off with relative ease. I predict the scoreline will be Arsenal 2 Villa 1. As i have said before, the win against the Mancs should give us somewhere to start, and if we win here we start to build momentum. I think also that the win has instilled new confidence and belief in this team, and that should have a good affect on them. Whether it has remains to be seen but I still feel that if we can with this game, it may be the turning point in our season and we can perhaps get some consistency.

Well, have a good night out tomorrow and keep the faith,

Asian Arsenal.

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