Aston Villa will aim to continue their incredible winning run with a victory against Premier League leaders Arsenal on Tuesday evening.
Villa have won eight Premier League matches in a row and sit in third place in the table, three points behind the Gunners at the top. Having beaten Arsenal at the start of December, Villa’s credentials at the top end of the table would be put beyond dispute if they were to do it again.
Unai Emery is quite rightly trying to avoid talk of Villa as title contenders. The more realistic aim is Champions League qualification and the fact that Villa would need to maintain their insane form to pull off a title tilt only reinforces that.
Yet if Villa were to take six points off Arsenal in a matter of weeks, title talk would become unavoidable.
I don’t think this fixture will tell us a great deal about where the league title is heading. As Emery would surely point out, there’s simply too much time between now and May to draw any kind of conclusion.
Villa’s visit to the Emirates Stadium will be perverted by the previous meeting between these two teams. Arsenal will be motivated by its recency, presented as they have been with a chance to put the points on the board they feel they missed a few weeks ago.
This isn’t a season-defining fixture and it might be one we just need to take on the chin. All we know is Villa won’t drop six points to Arsenal and that’s a pretty good start in the quest for Champions League football.
If Villa win it, they can enjoy the sunshine of whatever counts for a title race in late December but face more instructive challenges ahead.
If Villa lose, they’re six points off the top at the end of the calendar year and right in the thick of the European conversation – exactly where they want to be.
The top teams will take points off one another between now and the end of the season but Villa have already beaten most of them and will have played Arsenal twice. Even in defeat, their position would be strong.
What matters most is how Villa respond to whatever happens at the Emirates. It could be the end of their winning run but it wouldn’t need to be the end of their good form. Defeat can be a bump in the road, not necessarily the termination of it.
Emery has some very significant absences to contend with on Tuesday evening. For starters, right-back Matty Cash and midfielder Boubacar Kamara are both suspended after collecting their fifth yellow cards against Chelsea on Saturday.
Evann Guessand is at the Africa Cup of Nations and Villa remain without defensive duo Pau Torres and Tyrone Mings, whose absences are at least expected to end quite soon.
Midfielder Ross Barkley is also sidelined by injury. His return is expected to be later than those of Torres and Mings.
My guess is that the manager will be keen to keep an unchanged pairing at centre-back, meaning in all likelihood that Lamare Bogarde and Andrés García are his options at right-back. Given García’s lack of minutes this season, I can really only see that going one way.
The obvious decision in midfield is to pull Youri Tielemans back into the double pivot, meaning a familiar front four could be restored behind Watkins.
It has crossed my mind that Emery could opt for Jadon Sancho on the left or right, which would unlock a couple of different possibilities elsewhere, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say Emi Buendía will get the nod.
Villa’s away game against Arsenal will be broadcast live on Sky Sports Premier League in the UK.
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