Aston Villa v Arsenal: Premier League – live! | Football

The players are gathering in the tunnel. As I type, Emi Martinez is giving Granit Xhaka a hug.

Some injury news: Callum Chambers has “had some awareness of his muscle”, according to Steven Gerrard. Aaron Ramsdale “will be out for a few weeks”, says Mikel Arteta.

It looks like gorgeous sunny day in Birmingham, cool, bright, and generally perfect for playing, or indeed watching, a game of football.

Team news is in, and here it is. Villa make three changes and Arsenal two, the visitors saying Aaron Ramsdale has a hip injury and Gabriel Martinelli is unwell:

Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Young, McGinn, Douglas Luiz, Ramsey, Buendia, Watkins, Coutinho. Subs: Sanson, Traore, Chambers, Ings, Olsen, Bailey, Chukwuemeka, Iroegbunam, O’Reilly.
Arsenal: Leno, Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Odegaard, Partey, Xhaka, Saka, Lacazette, Smith Rowe. Subs: Holding, Pepe, Tavares, Sambi Lokonga, Elneny, Nketiah, Okonkwo, Swanson, Hutchinson.
Referee: Andrew Madley.

Well here we are. The game Mikel Arteta complained it was “not fair” for his team to play, what with also having played against Liverpool on Wednesday night. Puzzling outburst, that one. “The first thing is to protect the players and we have mentioned that many times,” he continued. “Please can we avoid the Wednesday night and the Saturday morning and travelling?” Mate, you’ve played at home midweek and then gone to birmingham. Last week I was at a Spurs game that ended late on a Monday night and had to be in Birmingham by 10am on Tuesday morning. Do you know what? It was absolutely fine, because Birmingham isn’t very far from London. It’s not like it’s Bucharest or Bratislava. “I am not talking about Europe, I am talking about the Premier League and how we schedule the games in the Premier League,” Arteta added. “When you are in Europe it is a different story, but I am talking about the Premier League and it is very different.” Well, a bit different, the main differences being that there’s much less travel time to whinge about and a lot of the teams you have to play are less good.

Anyway, and to summarise, consider Arsenal’s excuses in early.

As for Villa, not since September, when an 88th-minute Kortney Hause goal gave them victory at Old Trafford, they have beaten a current top eight side. Indeed take away Manchester United, whom they also drew with at home in January, and Villa haven’t taken a single point from the top eight teams all season.

“The teams at the top are there for a reason,” said Steven Gerrard. “It’s about consistency, they’ve recruited well, they’ve got experience and some have got managers who have been with them for some time. That’s the area of ​​the league we need to strive for, it’s where we want to be operating of course. I’m very much aware of the stats and those results but tomorrow gives us another opportunity to try to prove that when we’re at our best we can take points off the top teams.”

So in short, Villa want to win and Arsenal want to be somewhere else. Let’s see what happens, shall we?