Villa v Arsenal: the injuries, and the view on what the team and score will be.

 

 

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Recently…

• The window is almost shut but some still keep buying. Villa v Arsenal
• Aston Villa v Arsenal – how’s the season been going so far for Villa?

 

Arsenal are reported to have three injury problems at present

• William Saliba – Back Injury

• Jurrien Timber – Groin Injury

• Bruno Guimarães – Hamstring Injury

  And just as a reminder, the starting XI for the first game of the season (where by and large the lads “done great” as I think the saying goes), was

  David Raya, 

  Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, Gabriel Magalhães, Riccardo Calafiori, 

  Declan Rice, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Bukayo Saka, 

  Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz Christos Tzolis,

Now there is a bit of fun to be had with recent results, in that Arsenal enter this game with two consecutive wins, while Aston Villa are coming off two consecutive defeats.  One might be asking “Are you Tottenham in disguise?”   But that might be rather unkind I guess.

Meanwhile in terms of the injuries it is much the same as before.  Timberis a long term injury, Saliba so far has looked fine, Bruno Guimaraes looks like he might have hurt himself in the Community Shield., and that’s about it.

So the Metro give us 

David Raya, 

Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, Gabriel Magalhães, Riccardo Calafiori, 

Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly

Bukayo Saka,  Kai Havertz, Christos Tzolis.

which by and large looks like a more balanced version of the earlier line up where experiments seemed to be happening all over the place.

Incidentally I have the kick off tim noted in my diary as 8pm, although the Metro website at the moment is offering “Villa host Arsenal tonight (Monday 31 August) with kick-off scheduled for 4:30pm.”  They may of course change that but for what its worh I think that is wrong.  Although the date is right!   But Google gives 8pm, and in my experience Google is quite good on facts.

On the other hand, Al Jazeera Sport is not a source of information I turn to very often, or to be more exact, not a source I have ever turned to before, but here they are, with the headline, “How have Arsenal started the new Premier League season?” and they answer their own question by saying “Arsenal are a side brimming with the confidence of champions.”  Plus they note that “Mikel Arteta’s men have swatted aside Manchester City and Coventry City 3-0 to pick up the Community Shield and make a perfect start to their title defence respectively.”

At the same time they agree that Aston Villa were “thrashed” 4-0 by Brighton in their opening match of the new Premier League season last week.

In less positive news, they are also telling us that Martinelli left training early on Thursday amid speculation that he is set for a move to Saudi side Al Hilal for a fee that could reportedly rise to £50 million.  I’m sorry to see him go, but I can quite see why the club can’t turn down an offer like that.

Meanwhile, AlJaz also tells us that “The Opta supercomputer has given Arsenal a 63 percent chance of winning that game, while handing Villa – the home side – only a 16 percent chance.”

And their team that they predict will deliver that is

Raya;

White, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori;

Rice, Lewis-Skelly; Saka,

Odegaard, Tzolis;

Havertz

There is somkething rather reassuring when the main differences that turn up are in relation to the exact position where players are going to line up, and what time kick off is!  (The BBC incidentally says 8pm and if I am ever in doubt over something I tend to go with them.    After all, they have been around since October 18, 1922, which is a damn sight longer than I have.  (Incidentally I was told off for spelling that phrase wrongly on a previous occasion so I have looked it up, and got the spelling right now  “Damn sight” it is).

And here’s one other snippet.   A lot of my friends (well, some of my friends at least, well, one ex-friend who I don’t speak to any more) has been telling me that Untold Arsenal is not of much use any more since we can all get our football news from AI on any internet.   So I asked AI “What is Arsenal’s lineup for the Aston Villa game?”

And this is what the auto response system said…