After taking another three points back home from Everton in midweek, Arsenal face a tricky fixture this afternoon against Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium.
Since the Tottenham game, The Emirates has become something of a fortress for us and let’s hopes our good record at home this season continues.
The game itself sees us up against an Aston Villa team who did not have a game in midweek due to their game with Bolton being postponed so they will be fresh when they make the trip down to north London. We have already faced them twice this season and beaten them on both occasions, one of those including that brilliant second half comeback from 2-0 down in the FA Cup fourth round match.
After being 13 points behind Tottenham at one stage, we now lie one point ahead of them in 3rd place with our destiny in our own hands, but as we have already experienced it is important not to get over confident knowing that things can change very quickly football, an opinion shared by our right-back Bacary Sagna.
The Frenchman said:
‘The Villa game is massive, Tottenham are just one point behind us, but we were 12 points behind them in February. We are here now and we deserve to be here, but we have to give even more.
‘We can’t think about ‘what if?’ we just have to give our best and look after our team, not [concentrate] on the others.’
‘Villa have very good players, like Charles N’Zogbia and Gabriel Agbonlahor. We know they can cause us problems. But we must focus on ourselves and make sure we play well.
‘There are no easy games, even if everyone thought we would win at Everton, we were struggling. It was a hard game physically and mentally as well because it is never easy to win away.
‘We can’t anticipate the games. When Villa came to us in the FA Cup they were 2-0 up, so it is a warning. We know they have good players, and can play good football. But we are at home and we need to impose ourselves.’
He hits the nail on the head there. We may have won 6 games in a row, but I don’t think any of those games were walkovers and like against Everton, we had to dig deep at some stages during the game to get the three points and in the remaining nine games we have to be focused 100% to win the game.
The team news for the game looks good as we did not lose anybody in the game against Everton, but we will be without About Diaby, whom despite completing 60 minutes for the reserves, will not be risked this weekend.
Arsene Wenger says he will be back in the squad next weekend and can be a massive player in the games to come:
‘Diaby is available again, but he should be in the group next week.
‘I don’t want to take any gamble on him now. Apart from that it will be the same squad as at Everton.
‘He can be massive for us, but at the moment we have had so many setbacks with him that we don’t want to take a gamble. He needs another game [for the reserves], and then he will be ready.’
The manager also reserved praise for Kieran Gibbs, who in many people’s eyes had a great game against the Toffees, and he feels the young left-back is coming back to form after suffering his fair share of injuries during the last couple of years:
‘Because he has been out for a long time, when you start a game you are a bit more cautious.
‘But he slowly becomes himself again and you see that most of the time for a full back with the initiative it takes going forward.
‘Defensively in the challenges he is stronger. I still feel there is more to come from him and from game to game there are improvements there.
‘He was transformed into a full back but the natural [ability] always comes out. It is good because we have a game that is based on that.’
I expect the manager to set the team out like this:
Szczesney
Sagna Koscielny Vermaelen Gibbs
Walcott Arteta Song Gervinho
Ramsey
Van Persie
Given that we are playing at home, I think Wenger will go out with two proper wingers in Gervinho and Theo Walcott rather than the cautious approach he had taken at Goodison Park. The other person I don’t think will start is Tomas Rosicky, who has put in miles in the last few weeks and given that Aaron Ramsey has had a bit of a break, I think he will start ahead of Rosicky for the game.
With Chelsea taking Tottenham in the early kick-off, it is of optimum importance that we take all three points from our game today and pull away further from our rivals.
We’ve got to keep the foot firmly on the accelerator.
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