Arsenal vs Aston Villa Preview, Team News, Likely Line-ups + Score & Betting Predictions

Arsenal welcome Aston Villa to the Emirates on Saturday looking to get back on track after another difficult week in north London.

Last weekend’s disastrous defeat to Blackburn in the FA Cup was swiftly followed by a 3-1 loss to Bayern Munich in the first leg of our Champions League last 16 clash meaning our trophy hopes are all but over for another season.

All that remains is to try and qualify for the Champions League for next year and to do so we’ll have to overhaul Tottenham – who currently hold a four-point lead over us. Not insurmountable and we can move to within a single point with victory over Villa on Saturday, with Spurs facing a tricky trip to Upton Park to face West Ham on Monday.

Despite out cup woes, our league form has been pretty good in recent games with three wins from four and we’ll be facing a Villa side who’re fighting for their lives at the wrong end of the table.

Paul Lambert’s men are just outside the relegation zone but claimed a vital 2-1 win over rivals West Brom last time out, so will be coming to the Emirates with nothing to fear.

Team News

The big injury news is that right-back Bacary Sagna is out of the game after picking up a knee problem, so Carl Jenkinson is likely to come in. Kieran Gibbs is still out so Nacho Monreal should return at left-back after being ineligible to face Bayern in midweek.

Thomas Vermaelen covered on the left against the Germans but I’d like to see him moved back into the middle alongside Laurent Koscielny for this match. Per Mertesacker has been poor of late and I don’t fancy him against the talented Benteke.

I’d also expect Olivier Giroud to get a recall up front with Theo Walcott moving back to the wing, with Aaron Ramsey likely to make way. Tomas Rosicky made an impressive cameo on Tuesday and while I’d like to see him given a start, I think the boss will stick with the majority of the side that lost to Munich.

Aston Villa have been boosted with the news that Charles N’Zogbia is fit to play after recovering from a thigh injury. Karim El Ahmadi and Gabriel Agbonlahor are also in contention but Chris Herd, Marc Albrighton and Richard Dunne are all still out.

Likely Line-ups

Betting preview and predictions

Make no mistake, this is a big test for Arsenal. The players clearly took Blackburn too lightly and if we make the same mistake on Saturday we could easily come unstuck. But I’m going to back the boys to put a disappointing week behind them and come out firing against the Villains.

To see if my optimism was well placed, I headed over to Betegy.com and their prediction software has crunched the numbers and they support my view that Arsenal are going to win this game. They predict there is a 45% chance of an Arsenal win, 35% chance of a draw with an Aston Villa win at just 20%:

An Arsenal win is currently 1/3 with William Hill but if betting on the exact score is more your thing, Betegy data predicts there is a 33% chance that we’ll win the match 3-1 which is currently a very tempting 9/1 shot with William Hill.

Why not head over to Betegy and see what all the fuss is about? It’s free to join and you’ll receive free and accurate predictions for games throughout Europe every week. They have an excellent success rate so far so why not give it a try?

What would be your starting line-up and what’s you score prediction for the game? Get involved in the comments section below.