A curious opponent for The Arsenal today – Suburban Gooners

I haven’t managed to put together some thoughts on Villa, what the pundits are saying and also how they are playing under Unai Emery this season, before the managers do their press conferences. But much of what unfolded yesterday with journalists was sort of pushed to the back burner when, yesterday afternoon, Sami Mokbel announced that Arsenal would likely be out without Christian Mosquera for between six to eight weeks due to the injury he suffered against Brentford.

Of course they are.

Isn’t that typical of this season, in which I read somewhere that we had 13 injuries in 21 games.

It’s crazy.

The jokes about stockpiling players over the summer are now well and truly back, because we are reaching the stage where this injury crisis that Arsenal have been experiencing will far surpass anything I think any of us have experienced as Arsenal fans.

The difference this season is that we have such a deep squad, that even if Saliba isn’t fit enough for today (Arteta was a little vague about his return, saying there were “days” before he and Leo were back – which was yesterday when he said it so the plural nature suggests not), we still have quality players who can step up. On Wednesday night, for the last part of the game, it was Timber in the center half and, as one of the guys next to me in block five reminded me, he plays in the center half for the Netherlands, so he’s not really new to it.

This would mean Ben White would return to his right-back role and given he had a man-of-the-match performance against Brentford in midweek, one would hope he would be back and ready to contribute well again if asked. I suspect Arteta would prefer he didn’t; not because he’s not quality or capable, but having not played much football this season, throwing him into what will be another high-intensity game at in-form Villa isn’t really ideal for a gradual reintegration into first-team football.

But I guess we forced Odegaard to 90 midweek and he could do it again today, so maybe the same can be said of Benny Blanco.

So how would we line up today given the injuries, which Rice was also a question mark, if Arteta is to be believed. Immediately after the midweek game he said he was “fine” and so I don’t know if Arteta was using the possibility of him being injured as a smokescreen to keep Villa’s coaching staff guessing what might happen today, or if Arteta is really going to bench him or out of the team altogether. I read somewhere that he had traveled, but as we know, that doesn’t really mean much these days. He could just be there to encourage his teammates.

I hope he’ll be there, like all of us, but I also think that if you have a game to think about to rest him, it’s Club Brugge next week. We’ve already got our 15 points, we probably just need one more win from the next three to secure automatic qualification, so if he’s fit enough to play and he doesn’t carry anything today, you play him today, sit him at home midweek to rest, then put him on the field next weekend against Wolves.

So with that context in mind, I think/hope we’ll get:

Raya

Wood – Saliba – Hincapie – Calafiori

Zubimendi – Rice

Èze

Saka – Merino – Madueke

I think on the attacking side of the pitch, Odegaard came back and did the full 90 midweek and you probably want to manage his load coming back from injury, while Eze was on the bench, so you can rotate the two and get them to share a job for the next week or so. Next, I think Martinelli wasn’t exactly huge on the left, so Noni needs to try on that side, having provided cover support to rest Saka in midweek. Then at the top, surely just look at Merino given his form. Then again, perhaps he could share his position with Gyokeres for this one, perhaps giving the Swede 30 minutes, before giving him 60-70 minutes against Brugge on Wednesday. Merino has established himself in the manager’s thinking and it’s fantastic. If he can do business again today, then we will go a long way to winning this football game.

But to win this game we’re going to have to do something a lot of teams haven’t done and no one has done it since Palace did it towards the start of the season by winning at Villa Park. We are an in-form team, but we are second behind Aston Villa, who have won all of their last six games since the defeat to Liverpool at the start of November. So there will be great confidence in them today. The hope from Arsenal’s point of view is that this means they will play a more open and expansive game, because it means we will get chances and if we do we will have to take them.

The weird thing about Villa from a numerical perspective is that their home xG is actually quite bad, considering their performances in the league, with them 13th out of 20 in the league for xG produced at home at 6.9. But I guess you could say they are producing the goods because out of nearly seven goals, they have scored 11 at home. Their home and away opponents have created 18.5xG this season, putting them 11th in the table. So pretty average for a team that flies high at the top. Where they perform like a team towards the top of the table is:

• Shots conceded – they are fifth behind us, City, Palace and Chelsea
• Expected goals after the shot – they are third behind us and Chelsea

That’s about it. They have the most passes in their own penalty area of ​​anyone in the league, which doesn’t tell me much other than classic Unai Emery playing the ball out from the back, with many of their underlying metrics looking generally average. That’s why I don’t think you can underestimate the value of confidence and momentum and it looks like Villa are going to fight us once again for that early kick-off.

Arsenal need to calm the crowd down pretty quickly, in that sense and as much as I personally hate those 12:30 kick-offs, if we can get off to a good start it might take a little while for the home crowd to get going and when the time comes we will have done our job.

That’s the hope, although if they start quickly and give us something to worry about early, the afternoon might seem long.

It’s a tough game, we all know that, but a win here would be huge for the season. This would mean we would remain at least five points clear by the end of the weekend, having already scored first as City took on Sunderland at home this weekend, while we would also have Wolves at home next weekend, which would be another great opportunity to try and accumulate a few more points.

Come on Arsenal – do the business.

Tune in tomorrow for some post-game thoughts.