We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League game at Villa Park with our Aston Villa vs Arsenal prediction and preview. Can the Gunners avenge last season’s defeats to former boss Unai Emery?
Aston Villa vs Arsenal Stats: The Key Insights
- Arsenal are favoured by the Opta supercomputer to make it two wins from two Premier League games, beating Aston Villa in 49.9% of pre-match simulations.
- Villa did the double over Arsenal last season, accounting for 40% of the Gunners’ league defeats (2/5). They have won three straight Premier League games against them twice previously, in November 1993 and February 2021.
- Bukayo Saka has won 99 of his 171 Premier League games with Arsenal. Another victory will make him the fourth player to reach 100 wins in the competition before turning 23, after Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fàbregas and Phil Foden.
Arsenal fell just two points short of ending their 20-year Premier League title drought last season, and Aston Villa were responsible for six of the points dropped by Mikel Arteta’s men. On Saturday, the Gunners are plotting revenge over their former boss Unai Emery in a blockbuster early evening kick-off at Villa Park.
Emery’s Villa were responsible for 40% of Arsenal’s Premier League defeats in 2023-24 (2/5), triumphing 1-0 at Villa Park last December and 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium in April. They could now win three straight Premier League games against the Gunners for the third time, having previously done so in November 1993 and February 2021.
They will face a mammoth challenge against Arteta’s side, though, after they kickstarted their latest title bid with a comfortable 2-0 win over Wolves on Matchday 1, with Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka on target.
Villa are actually the only team to beat Arsenal in the Premier League in 2024, the Gunners managing 17 victories in 19 games this calendar year (one draw, one defeat). In Football League history, the most wins ever managed by a team through their first 20 matches in a calendar year is 18, achieved by Liverpool in 1982 and Manchester City in both 2019 and 2021.
The Gunners have been particularly strong on the road this year, winning eight of nine Premier League away games with the only exception being a goalless draw at Manchester City. Arteta’s side have kept seven clean sheets in those matches, only conceding three goals from an expected goals against (xGA) total of 5.89. City have the next-best defensive record on the road in 2024, and they have given up 12.39 xGA in 10 away matches.
Arteta could opt to introduce Jurriën Timber or Riccardo Calafiori from the start on Saturday, though Oleksandr Zinchenko proved a useful outlet against Wolves last week, with only Martin Ødegaard (19) bettering the left-back’s 15 accurate passes into the final third.
Further forward, Arsenal will again lean on the brilliance of Saka, who contributed a goal and an assist last time out and has been on the winning side in 99 of his 171 Premier League games with them. Another win would make him just the fourth player to reach 100 victories in the competition before turning 23 years old, after Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fàbregas and Phil Foden.
Fellow forward Havertz, meanwhile, has 17 Premier League goal involvements (10 goals, seven assists) since February 17, when Arsenal trounced Burnley 5-0. No player has more contributions in that time, though Havertz is yet to score or assist in seven games against Villa, for both Chelsea and Arsenal.
Villa also started their campaign with a win, as Jhon Durán came off the bench to score the winner in a 2-1 triumph at West Ham after Lucas Paquetá’s penalty had cancelled out Amadou Onana’s debut goal.
Durán’s goal was his sixth in the Premier League and his fifth as a substitute (83%), with Matt Derbyshire the only player in the competition’s history to net five or more goals and see a higher proportion of them come off the bench (90% – nine of 10).
Durán also averages a goal every 103 minutes in the Premier League, with Erling Haaland the only player to score at least five times in the division and boast a better minutes-per-goal ratio (one every 85 minutes).
Onana, meanwhile, has scored all four of his Premier League goals via headers from corners, with last week’s effort making him Villa’s 27th debutant to net in the competition.
Villa’s Matchday 1 victory was their first since 2020-21 (1-0 versus Sheffield United), and they could now start a Premier League season with back-to-back wins for the fourth time, previously doing so in 1995-96, 1999-00 and 2020-21.
Emery will again be without long-term injury absentees Boubacar Kamara and Tyrone Mings, but otherwise has a full squad available to choose from.
Aston Villa vs Arsenal Head-to-Head
Villa have won five of their last nine Premier League meetings with Arsenal (four defeats), keeping a clean sheet in every victory.
That is as many wins as they had managed in their previous 46 league matches against the Gunners (14 draws, 27 defeats).
Arsenal, though, have won 14 away Premier League games against the Villans, their joint-most wins at a single away venue in the competition, having also triumphed 14 times at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park.
The Gunners have also scored 98 Premier League goals against Villa in total, only netting more against Everton (124), West Ham (109) and Tottenham (105). Only Liverpool and Manchester United (five opponents each) have netted 100 or more Premier League goals against more different clubs.
Aston Villa vs Arsenal Prediction
The Opta supercomputer makes Arsenal favourites to make it two wins from two games in 2024-25, though it does not rule out the prospect of Villa frustrating them again.
Across 10,000 pre-match simulations conducted by the supercomputer, the Gunners were victorious in 51.1% to Villa’s 24.7%, with 24.2% of scenarios ending in a draw.
Ahead of Matchday 2, the supercomputer gives Arsenal a 9.6% chance of winning the title but a 50.2% chance of finishing second for a third straight season. Villa, meanwhile, are assigned a 9.8% chance of replicating last campaign’s fourth-place finish.
Aston Villa vs Arsenal Predicted Lineups
Aston Villa: Emiliano Martínez, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres, Lucas Digne, Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana, John McGinn, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey, Ollie Watkins
Arsenal: David Raya, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, William Saliba, Declan Rice, Thomas Partey, Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides:
Enjoy this? Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.