{"id":8910,"date":"2023-12-08T07:03:15","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T07:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8910"},"modified":"2023-12-10T21:16:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T21:16:06","slug":"the-rise-of-the-villans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8910","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the Villans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1467352444\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:70.37037% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1467352444?et=un5pP4rITMB78oXFctxUeQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=_7zwu6t7hXzPfTKu3odNSQyTNpvGHBvwkobtd2xXeXk=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"418\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal travel North and West from London to the heart of Birmingham to meet Aston Villa for a Saturday early evening kickoff at Villa Park.  If you weren&#8217;t aware, Arsenal top the Premier League table, having won four of our last 5 (the slip at Newcastle being our last reverse) in the League, and 9 of our last 10 games overall.  We sit four points clear of our opponents, making this one of our two most important fixtures before we usher in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Villa are, perhaps, a surprise member of the top four, two points ahead of the Al-Citeh Oilers and two behind Liverpool&#8217;s mugsmashers (\u2122Arseblog).  Having dispatched the Oilers with a fine attacking display in this round of midweek games (outshooting them 22 to 2 in their 1-0 victory), they will be coming home flying confidently, unbeaten in their last 11 Premier League games following their 0-3 defeat at Anfield in early September.  They carry a 14-game home winning streak into the match, having last been beaten at home in the league by&#8230;Arsenal, in February of this year.  That was the game with the delicious Emi Martinez own goal from a Jorginho thunderbolt, then the Martinelli goal into the empty net after Emi came forward (some say against his manager&#8217;s wishes) for a Villa corner.  Finally, they carry into the game the third best record for the year 2023, behind Al-Citeh and Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Martinez is not the only person who will be on the pitch, or aside it, who will feel keenly that beating Arsenal will show something they have had to prove.  This will be only the fourth game in which Unai Emery, Villa&#8217;s thus far successful manager, has met his opposite number and erstwhile successor (not to discount Freddie&#8217;s tenure).  They have split honors even across the three games, and Emery will be keen to bring his Villans to even higher heights with a victory that will bring them closer to the top of the table.  Our Mikel will seek to disrupt those plans, in hopes that Arsenal will not only remain top of the table, but (depending upon other results) perhaps extend our lead.  Of course, he will be doing this from the Director&#8217;s box, having been absurdly given his third yellow card of the season by the local representative of the Celebration Police after Rice Rice Baby&#8217;s game-winning header in the 97th minute at Kenilworth Park on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Aston Villa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Villa will arrive home having a day&#8217;s less rest than Arsenal, and carrying three long-term injuries (Buendia, Mings, and Traore).  Otherwise Emery has every one fit and can start his usual 4-4-2, with leading scorer Watkins paired with Zaniolo up front, a midfield of McGinn, Luiz, Tielemans, and Bailey, ahead of a defense made up of Digne and Konsa at the corners, with Torres and Carlos in the middle ahead of the aforementioned Emi. They tend to play a high line as a result of pushing up one or the other of their fullbacks into midfield, and hopefully that&#8217;s something we can exploit with our one-touch play.  They score goals, but they also give them up; we&#8217;ve scored one less than they have in the League, but our fine defense has let in five fewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We come to the game missing yet another defender to injury; Tomiyasu did his calf and is now out into January.  We&#8217;re light in midfield, given Vieira and ESR&#8217;s absences, and in spite of how well Rice is playing wouldn&#8217;t it be nice to have a Partey holding the line ahead of the defense.  And as for goalkeeper, I have to believe Raya will get the nod, even though I think it continues the injustice being done to Ramsdale.  But Mikel is in a pickel:  select Raya, who certainly didn&#8217;t have a confidence-building game at Luton Tuesday, or Ramsdale, whose game at Brentford was less than stellar for a half, and whose confidence has been shaken to bits by being benched in such a manner?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I expect we&#8217;ll line up like so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">White &#8212; Saliba &#8212; Gabriel &#8212; Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">\u00d8degaard &#8212; Rice &#8212; Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Saka &#8212; Jes\u00fas &#8212; Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One adjustment I could see to this is Trossard for Havertz, but given the big German&#8217;s three goals from his last four I imagine he&#8217;ll get the start.  Trossard coming in and running late at a tired Villa defense is enough to bring the glimmer of joy to my jaded heart.  I could also see starting with Kiwior again, in hopes we can secure the game then bring on Zinchenko as at Luton to keep on the pressure and mop up with control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Holic Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s not too much there until you get up to Arsenal 3-0 Villa, which can be had at 20s.  If you believe Luton&#8217;s successes could be a model for Villa to follow, Arsenal 3-2 Villa should be available at 25\/1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good luck to the travelling faithful making their way up to Birmingham on Saturday, I expect to hear your voices all the way here in California.  Let&#8217;s do this!  COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Arsenal travel North and West from London to the heart of Birmingham to meet Aston Villa for a Saturday early evening kickoff at Villa Park. If you weren&#8217;t aware, Arsenal top the Premier League table, having won four of our last 5 (the slip at Newcastle being our last reverse) in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8910"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8925,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8910\/revisions\/8925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}