Adebayor was originally set to miss most of November with his ankle problem but he’s rated 50:50 for this game. He’ll face a late fitness test. I could see him on the bench for this. Almunia is back in training following his injury against United

It’s always good fun watching the kids humble full strength Premier League opposition. Not just humble, make them look awful. That combined with the United result should see the club in a good mood. But without developing some form of consistency it’s pointless. It’s all well and good raising our game for the English and European champions but if we’re going to struggle for results in the following weeks then we’ll go back to the days of knowing we’re going to finish fourth by December. We beat United home and away in the 06/07 season, beat Liverpool at home, didn’t lose against Chelsea, and finished 21 points off top spot. Now’s the period to get a run of wins going, with Villa on Saturday, City the week after, then Chelsea away, and Liverpool in mid December. A run of good results here would really start building the confidence. We’ve shown we’re good enough to beat any side by beating United, but we need to do it week in week out or wins like that are pointless, they just give a few nice memories from an otherwise wasted season. Villa is a good team to continue the run against, they’re not newly promoted so there’s no danger there, and they’re good enough that we can raise our game against them and not be lazy.

We’re only in the top four thanks to Villa’s recent fuck ups. They’ve lost their last two matches, against Middlesbrough and Newcastle, and have only won two of their last six games, losing three of them. Having said that, they are a dangerous side under O’Neill. We only narrowly avoided defeat at home against them last season, a late late Bendtner goal sparing our blushes, and that result coupled with the Birmingham ‘incidents’ was the beginning of the end for our title challenge. They were joint top scorers away from home last season, level with ourselves, but their away form this season has been somewhat erratic, with three wins and three draws. This is hopefully a game that our ‘stars’ can be motivated for. Villa are a good side and we can’t afford to play as badly as we have at times this season or we’ll be punished by some good players. Our kids have once again shown the first team how it should be done, so fuck knows why we keep seeing the performances we were seeing leading up to the United game when players like Merida, Wilshere, Ramsey, Vela etc are waiting for their chances. We have a midweek gap before the Villa game for the first team, and again next week before the City, so no poor performances can be put down to a “lack of sharpness”. It’ll just be us being poor.

History

Since Arsene has been in charge, we’ve beaten Villa thirteen times, drawn eight times, and lost twice. They last beat us a decade ago. They last beat us away from home over fifteen years ago, with a victory at Highbury in 1993. Of the last ten times these two sides have met, we’ve won seven and drawn three. In recent meetings between Wenger and O’Neill, it’s two wins and three draws.

Team News

Adebayor was originally set to miss most of November with his ankle problem but he’s rated 50:50 for this game. He’ll face a late fitness test. I could see him on the bench for this. Almunia is back in training following his injury against United and he should be in goal against Villa, he’ll also have a late fitness test. Eboue is definitely out. van Persie faces the last game of his suspension, and in his absence I guess we’ll go with the same team that beat United with Diaby supporting Bendtner. Silvestre and Gallas seems to be Arsene’s preferred centre back pairing at the moment, with Toure being left out last Saturday despite Gallas only passing a late fitness test before the game. Eduardo will be back in first team training soon and Rosicky is six to eight weeks away. Allegedly.

Subs: Fabianski, Toure, Song, Ramsey, Wilshere, Vela, Adebayor.