In the words of Peaky Fucking Blinders, we have got a curse. Call it The Emery Curse, or the Emi’s, but we have one.
Last season, in the first game against Villa, we lost 1-0 after they scored in 07th minute and we never recovered. They were coming off of a win at City and they beat us. We did create some chances later on but never converted it. In the home game, we lost 0-2 when we conceded both goals in last 10 minutes. We were just 2 points behind Man City with 6 games to go, and a loss to Villa confirmed our title challenge was over. We needed a win so much at that point and they denied us. I hate them more than Spurs these days. The two losses costed us the title at the end.
Anyways, it’s a new season and a new fight. We take on Aston Villa at Villa Park today in a 5.30 evening kick off.
In the team news, there would be some surprises. Fabio Vieira is most likely going back to Porto on a loan so won’t feature today. Tomiyasu and Tierney remains unavailable due to injuries. We are most likely going ahead with the same team that featured against Wolves. A back 4 of White, Gabriel, Saliba and Zinchenko; a midfield of Partey, Rice, and Odegaard; a front 3 of Saka, Havertz and Martinelli. I would love to see Timber in place of Zinchenko starting today though, he is one for the future and improves our left side by a margin. Martinelli hardly gets any support from Zinchenko and that’s the difference between the outputs of him and Saka.
Gabriel Jesus is also not available as the rumours goes.
Mikel Arteta had to say this in the pre-match conference yesterday,
on how big of a test Villa away is so early in the season:
It’s one of the toughest places to go for sure. We know that, we’ve prepared really well to understand what we have to do to go there and win the game.
on the importance of getting a result against Unai Emery personally:
Personally? I don’t do things personally, I just have the will to win and prepare the team in the best possible way, regardless of who we are playing against.
source: Arsenal.com
It’s tough because we lost both games against Villa in the best season of Mikel Arteta. For the Unai Emery question, Mikel is fooling everyone including himself. He would have sleepless nights thinking how Emery got the better of him and I am hoping he has an answer to that today.
There are some things happening in the transfer window. Forest looks really interested in Eddie Nketiah and we have rejected a £25m and Forest will agree for £30m me thinks.
Fabio Vieira is going on a loan to Porto (from where we got him 2 years back). This one is a strange move, because we have sold ESR already and we would be left with only Odegaard as an attacking mid with no back up or competition. There are talks that the management is very impressed with Ethan Nwaneri and he would deputize Odegaard.
Merino deal is almost confirmed, he will be joining us from Real Sociedad for a £28m free. I have not seen much of him, but we know Rice is more of a #6 and we needed a #8 after Mikel decided to shift Kai up top.
We have also rejected a Wolves move for Aaron Ramsdale on loan + option to buy. We are in a favor of a permanent move for Aaron, and we have already decided a replacement in Joan Garcia from Espanyol.
Hardly a week left, there would be some chaos at the end, lets see how it pans out for us.
Right, that’s all for today. See you during the game.
Marc—it’s so that Rice can go hunting, which seems to wrongly infer that he’s a more natural goalscorer than Marts
decent play by Havertz to set up the break, but in the end it just highlighted Kai’s negative vertical and Rice’s inability to strike a ball when his feet aren’t firmly planted
Are we trying to physically bully Villa?
How did he miss that?
maybe Watkins was simply paying homage to our Striking core…he could well be MA’s first choice option for a late window buy
Amabarish—our gameplan looks similar to the one against City late last season…Rice is as much an 8 as Havertz is a 9 and Merino is a 6, yet that could very much be our future…even Wenger wouldn’t shoehorn that much, which just goes to show the level of MA’s God complex
I get all the talk about Rice playing in more advanced spaces for the national side, as that would allow Jude to play more as a second striker, along side or just behind Kane…in our case, we should be looking for someone who actually has goals in their boots, to supplement the fact that we don’t have a clinical finisher up top…if you keep settling for lesser options in key positions, it will generally come back to haunt you
I feel for Marts…we’re so disbalanced up top that sometimes the only other player on his side of the pitch is Rice, who never makes dummy runs, as he still has defensively responsibilities
defensive
TRVL
Agree on Martinelli and from what I’ve seen today Timber is not going to work as a LB from an attacking point of view. He cannot offer any form of overlap making Martinelli easy to play against.
I’d say both teams look a little off the pace needing to shake off close season but you can see already that Villa are going to be a threat to any team they play.
We’re seriously lucky not to be a goal down.
It’s a chess game where neither side is having any dominance. Emery nullifying us but not being able to take advantage of and short spells of control.
Certainly a draw for the first half, let’s hope we can up our game for the 2nd half depending on what Unai instructs his players to do.
Partey looking good at 6.
We look bereft of ideas like last week and last season. It’s right side centric with little balance to our left leaving Marts frustrated as my posts all week have said.
One real shot from Saka his trademark cut in where Emi was up to the task.
Same shit different day we’d say in the UK. Huffing and puffing, but Villa knows our moves and frustrate us, so we need something different.
Right now, I’d say either side can go one to win it with a piece of magic. The smart money would be on Watkins, but we have trusty Havertz to pull one out of nowhere for us or Eddie just in case……
Still sticking to a draw but hope for the win….
Unfortunately it’s 12:40am and the game is so sterile it’s hard to keep awake especially as i’m still recovering from the virus. I’ll watch the 2nd half in the morning.
That’s two weeks running Raya’s pulled off a world class save.
We could easily be 2 nil down.
Watkins again
That header could have away from GK
Emery might take him off
Tony—it’s the middle of the day here and I’m still thinking about having a snooze
this still has the feel of a Villa friendly affair…if we’re so good why don’t we ever seem to impose our will on sides that matter
looks like Unai’s going to make the first move
Villa has stopped committing bodies forward and waiting for a counter.. That’s a dangerous thing because we don’t know what to do with the ball if we can’t draw opposition to us and put more bodies in the final third ourselves.. We are out-numbered in their half.
Ambarish—it’s not the amount of bodies, as we have plenty in their final third, it’s who those bodies are…good on Tross to captialize on a lucky bounce
Finally El B got a one up on Emery.
Saka gave assists in both.
Saka , like Palmer can change a game by himself.
Of course Tossard strike was pure good fortune
looks like my two goal prediction could pan out…might even be more…just didn’t like how Villa looked last week and they aren’t very crisp this evening either…it’s not as if they haven’t had their chances