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

Posted on by Tony Attwood

 

 

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Recently…

 

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…

“Arsenal’s official starting lineup for their upcoming Premier League match against Aston Villa on Monday, August 31, 2026 has not been announced yet, as the official team sheet is typically released shortly before kick-off.”

Mind you computers can be helpful sometime as we also were given the news that João Gomes  is suspended for Aston Villa’s upcoming match against Arsenal.   That was seemingly due to his red card.

So there we are.  An Arsenal preview with a spot of AI.  I’m not sure it puts me out of work yet, but if you feel you would like to write a match preview, or indeed any sort of article on an Arsenal related subject for publishing in Untold, you can always send it in.   Ideally send it as a Word file by email to Tony@schools.co.uk – but if you don’t have Word I can probably still read it in other formats.

 

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9 Replies to “Villa v Arsenal: the injuries, and the view on what the team and score will be.”

  3. WOO HOO, HOO ! 3 points again , but it was not an easy game to win. The fact that we did not allow then any chances , especially in the second half was very heartening .
    They were much better than in their first game where they were overrun.
    Up the Gunners !

  4. How McGinn wasn’t sent off is beyond me. Three thug like fouls all of which were yellow card offences.

    Arsenal six fouls all game but pick up the first yellow for an inocuous and only foul of the game, after half an hour.

    Villa 17 fouls and no card until the last ten minutes. Maatsen alone commits five fouls and doesn’t get carded until 95th minute. At least the PGMOL (or whatever the hell they call themselves nowadays) are consitent……consistently letting teams kick us all over the pitch.

  5. Also McGinn showing constant dissent by angrily confronting the referee on numerous occasions.

    Agree that Tzolis foul did not merit a yellow, whereas Cash committed several fouls on him, without any caution from referee.

    Havertz was fouled repeatedly, with nothing given.

  6. Mickey
    Agree completely re the serial thug McGinn. How he didn’t get sent off is a mystery. And why we didn’t get a penalty for the foul on Guimeres is a mystery.
    Actually it isn’t really a mystery it’s simply business as usual as far as PGMOL is concerned.

  7. Apparently they are ProRef now! Should have had 2 more penalties, and the one that was given was outside yhe box! Surely we can’t get Jarred Gillett on the team of officials on Sunday (which would make it THREE IN A ROW)?!

  8. @Vikrant

    No Gillett this coming weekend. The ref will be Chris Kavanagh whom we’ve had 28 times in all. At home we’ve had him ten times. Won 7 Drawn 3, an average of 2.4 points per game. Better than the average ref. He’s given us 17 yellows and 2 reds in those ten games. Worse than the average ref.

    He’s also reffed Chelsea ten times away from home. W4 D1 L5, an average of 1.3 points pg. Worse than the average ref. He’s given them 20 Y and 2 R cards. Also worse than the average ref.

    He sees Chelsea away commit more fouls than the average ref which may be the reason for the above average number of cards. But he sees Arsenal at home as committing fewer than the average fouls yet still gives us a higher than average number of cards.

    He’s given both sides two red cards overall. Both Arsenal’s came at home and both Chelsea’s were away from home. This could be interesting.

  9. @Mikey

    Going through Transfermarkt, I note that we either win pr draw with Chris Kavanagh when he officiates us at the Emirates…

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