Wings could be key for Arsenal against Villa tonight – Suburban Gooners

Have a great match day guys – hope all is well?

Well, I say ‘happy’ match day, but we all know that depends on Arsenal being able to pick up all three points tonight against a red-hot Aston Villa and in great form at the moment, and going into this game feeling like they can beat anyone. And they have proven it so far with 11 consecutive wins, including against us, and also beating City at home. Arsenal must be very aware of this, and as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Villa have a pretty good record in our gaffe as well, so they’ll feel it a bit tonight I suppose.

I thought back to that game and Villa’s star men that day – according to SofaScore – were Emi Martinez, Matt Cash and Boubacar Kamara. Two of them are not in the team tonight due to suspension, which will hopefully be good news for us. Cash is key to the way Villa attack and was the scorer in the first half as Eze switched off at the back post, while Kamara is one of Villa’s main pass triggers; he ranks in the 80+ percentile of all footballers on Fbref for his attempted passes, successful passes and progressive passes from his deepest position. He’s also in the 90th percentile for clearances and aerial duels won, so there’s no doubt they’re missing a key cog tonight against us. Their replacements – Bogarde and Onana give me a mixed picture. Onana has always felt like an impressive ball-winning midfielder, so it doesn’t seem like a massive drop in quality, but Bogarde has only started three games in the Premier League and only got 331 minutes with two yellow cards. He’s a young defender so that’s an area tonight that I hope we can exploit.

And with Saka on the other flank, as an Arsenal fan you have to look at our wings as the key to getting some joy out of what I think is a mid to low Villa block. I think they will see us and Chelsea in a similar light, and I’ve read a few comments from Villa fans saying they weren’t great in the first half as Chelsea piled on the pressure. So I expect them to be cautious, try to limit us in the first half, slow the game down, and then look to replicate that approach by changing systems and changing teams in the second half.

This is why I think he will go with Trossard again, even if Martinelli could be a tempting option. But if someone like Martinelli would be good in small moments, you’d think bringing him on at the back with 20 minutes to go could be something that occupies Villa’s thoughts.

The composition of my expected team for this evening is therefore as follows:

Raya

Wood – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

Zubimendi

Odégarard – Rice

Saka – Gyokères – Trossard

There have been a few questions about Gyokeres and in the Same Old Arsenal group we did on Sunday, James advocated bringing in Jesus, but I don’t think Arteta will do that just yet. I’m not 100% sure, but I think he could see if Gyokeres can give a bit more against this Villa team. I think he was better against Brighton and had a few decent shots, as well as a tame one in the opening minutes, but I think Arteta will be hoping he can create a little more space and even if he doesn’t, his running and concern for the center halves could well be beneficial if the flanks are to play a large part of this game.

The other question mark will be behind, for which we have not had any news on Timber and Calafiori. I hope these are just small precautionary moves and that the players, with a few extra days, have recovered. Arteta spoke about both of them after the Brighton game and he didn’t seem too concerned, just a little perplexed, so hopefully the coaching staff just had overly cautious thoughts given the volume of injuries we’ve had this season. If neither of those two are available it presents a bit of a challenge, primarily at right back, as on the left he could bring in either MLS or Hincapie. But right, do you really want to bring Rice back? He was great against Brighton, but in a game like this against an opponent like Villa you want as many players as possible playing in their natural positions.

I said I had a look at this game last time at Villa Park and looked at both the line-ups and the stats. We fielded Timber and Hincapie as center halves and were bringing Ben White to the ground. Eze started on the left and was caught napping for his first goal, while Merino up top offered virtually nothing. Tonight’s team – if it’s anything like the one I picked above – would hopefully be a lot more formidable for Villa and given we gave them such a balanced away game and the numbers suggest we were unlucky to lose in the final seconds (it was about even on most stats you look at), my hope for tonight is that we see an Arsenal team with their swaggering back. We haven’t seen it for a while, but it felt like we had started to get back that feeling of being able to dominate and stifle teams against Brighton until they scored against the run of play.

This is what we must get to tonight. Fingers crossed we can.

Okay, I’ll end it and come back tomorrow with more thoughts. Have fun, kids.