Arsenal vs. Aston Villa Preview 14 November, 2008

Now it’s time to prove our worth; was last weekend’s win against Man United just a fluke or are we actually going to continue this form?

I’m hoping it’s the latter and I have a feeling that it probably will be. A win over Manchester United is a moral boost for any team and we’ll go into tomorrow’s game with that little bit of extra confidence.

Villa aren’t on top form at the moment but that’s no excuse not to prepare mentally. Our problem is that we lose some spirit and determination for games outside the top 4 and just think that everything will turn out alright. Villa aren’t the greatest example of one of those teams, they’re a pretty decent side and arguably in the ‘top 5′. Even still though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slight drop in quality from us. We need to somehow go into every game with the same attitude.

Wenger needs to drill into the players that each game is just as important as the last, it doesn’t matter whether you’re playing AC Milan or Accrington Stanley – the performance should be of the same top quality.

If we play like we did last weekend then tomorrow should be another cracker and hopefully another important 3 points.

So should we put the same team out that beat United? Everyone from that team is fresh and fit to play after the kids took over in midweek. Almunia is fit to play but we’ve also got Adebayor back. So that means only Eboue, Rosicky and Eduardo are out now but we could be seeing Eddy very soon.

We could keep exactly the same team and not rush Adebayor back straight into the starting 11. Or maybe scrap with 4-4-1-1 with Diaby in there and play the traditional two strikers. Or we could just do a straight swap, Bendtner for Adebayor?

I’m not sure what Wenger will do really, depends on how fit Adebayor is, and how defensive he thinks we’ll need to be/not be. I’m guessing it’ll be something like this:

Almunia
Sagna – Silvestre – Gallas (c) – Clichy
Walcott – Fabregas – Denilson – Nasri
Adebayor – Bendtner

I don’t know….feels harsh leaving Diaby out but I don’t know how Wenger would accommodate him because I know he’ll want to play Denilson. I also think we’ll play two out-and-out strikers against Aston Villa.

It seems like Silvestre has slipped his way into our preferred XI. Gunnerblog explains why Kolo Toure has been missing out saying it’s Gallas or Toure, not Silvestre or Toure. Silvestre’s ‘attack the ball’ mentality works well with Gallas’ and Toure’s ‘sit back and clear up the mess’ mentality, hence the defensive frailties in the side when we play the Gallas and Toure combination.

I’m back up in London for tomorrow’s game and I’m really looking forward to it. I was so jealous watching those 60,00 Gooners going mad last weekend. My record for the games I’ve travelled up from Bournemouth for isn’t so good; let’s hope we make a step in the right direction tomorrow.

Match report to come on Sunday. Until then.