Villa welcome the Gunners to Villa park come boxing day!

Aston Villa are set to be seated in 3rd come Christmas day, however come boxing day, the high flyers take on Arsenal at Villa Park. Aston Villa will once again look to take maximum points off the Gunners and continue their misery. Having beaten Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates, it will give O'Neil a great deal of confidence that his Claret and Blue army will be able to repeat it again.

However, the emphasis will very much be upon Arsenal come boxing day, as their season has been very stop start, and Arsene Venger will want to very much get Arsenal's seaon back on track, particularly with Villa now creating a 3 point gap between the two teams. 

Previous results: 

Last season's game against Aston Villa at Villa Park saw Villa lose 2-1 to the might of the Gunners. 

Injury news:

John Carew is still out, and there has been no confirmation on how the Villa talesment is doing, but he does look set to miss out on more games until early into the new year. Carlos Cuellar is a potential doubt after a clash in the West Ham game that saw the makeshift rightback being substituted after a hefty challenge.*UPDATE* Martin Laursen is a potential doubt as he may have sustained a fresh knee injury during the West Ham game. Villa are waiting upon results from scans on the severity of the injury. 

*UPDATE* Cesc Fabregas is out for 4 months having ruptured knee legiments during the clash against Liverpool.  Kolo Toure may well also miss the game due to calf problems, while theo walcott and thomas rosicky are out with long term injuries. Arsenal are also going to be without Adebayor after he was red carded in the game on Sunday against Liverpool. 

Match Prediction:

It is a hard one to call, as Arsenal have been very stop start. However, I am going to keep faithfall and say that Villa will do it again. As the emphasis will be upon Arsenal to go out their and attack, which will leave gaps and mean Villa can use that explosive pace and allow Villa to counter attack.  As unlike other teams such as Fulham, it may well have the makings of an away game as Arsenal cannot just sit back and defend as they need the points. 

One to Watch:

Agbonlahor 

Possible Line-ups: 

Aston Villa - Friedel, Cuellar, Laursen, Davies, Luke Young, Sidwell, Petrov, Barry, Milner, Agbonlahor, Ashley Young.

Arsenal -  Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Djourou, Clichy, Nasri, Diaby, Song, Denilson, Van Persie, Bendtner.