This weekend, the Gunners travel to Aston Villa in search of their second win in a row. They ended their three-game winless streak last weekend against Sam Allardyce’s Sunderland, in a win which saw them overtake Manchester City to claim second place – behind only Leicester City. Villa, on the other hand, have continued last season’s troubling form, seeing them sit rock bottom of the Barclays Premier League table with only six points from 15 games. As such, Arsene Wenger’s men will be looking to capitalise on Villa’s poor results and earn another three points.
Despite struggling, Villa have had a couple of players stand out so far this season. The first name that springs to mind is former Manchester City and Swansea City winger Scott Sinclair. The 26-year-old looks to be heading in the right direction to recovering his immense form which sealed his move to the Etihad in the first place. He has scored six times for Remi Garde’s side so far this season and looks to be their best hope of remaining in the Premier League. The Englishman is lightning quick on the ball and an excellent finisher. It goes without saying that the Arsenal full-backs will need to be wary of him, and with the absence of Francis Coquelin in the Arsenal side, the entire defence will have to be wary of his pace should Villa break on the counter. To combat this, the fill-in central midfielders need to make sure that they patrol in front of the back four. Obviously, they can be allowed the freedom to go forwards in attack, but they must remain disciplined in order to prevent Sinclair punishing them.
The other noteworthy player for Villa this season is Rudy Gestede. The six-foot-four tall striker has scored four times in 11 appearances this season and is most dangerous when he receives crosses in the air. At such a height, he will undoubtedly cause the Arsenal defenders problems in the air and so it is vital that not only is 27-year-old man-marked by Per Mertesacker but that the majority of crosses are prevented from going in.Nacho Monreal and Hector Bellerin will be vital in this sense, if they can push the Villa attackers out wide and prevent them a decent opportunity to cross, then Gestede won’t see much fo the ball and won’t pose as much of a problem.
Realistically, the Gunners shouldn’t be troubled by Villa, even with Remi Garde at the helm. They have far too much quality for Villa to handle and as Olympiacos found, if they offer them too much time and space, then they will be punished. The two talismans for Arsenal this weekend will undoubtedly be Olivier Giroud and Joel Campbell. Both were instrumental in the win over the Greek champions and seem to be in rich veins of form. Therefore, the game plan should be similar to that against Olympiacos, defend as a unit but give them hell in attack.
The Gunners should be easily wrapping up all three points this weekend against arguably, the worst side in the league at the moment. However, with English football the way that it is there are no guarantees and so the Gunners will need to remain wary of Villa if they should break on the counter.
