One of the many, many sliding-door moments that this club has faced includes none other than Unai Emery, who brought one of the worst squads we’ve seen since the formation of the Prem to the brink of winning a Europa League title. Where might we be had he delivered on his promise of success on that stage? Would we trade that silverware for the form we’re in, for the promise of silverware that still lies just out of reach? If we win the Prem, those rhetorical questions will, in retrospect, sound silly. A bird in the hand and all that. We have a chance at grasping something greater, though.
Spare a thought for Emery. But for the scintillating form of Aubameyang, he was almost always out of his depth. Handed the squad he was handed—the one in which hs best CB pairing consisted of some combination of Holding, Sokratis, Kolašinac, Mustafi, and Luiz—it’s almost a miracle that we got as close as we did to silverware of any kind. Hell, I needed a moment to compose myself after, well, composing that sentence.
Enough of wallowing in the past. Under Arteta, we’ve won an FA Cup, come within a few points of winning the Prem, and now find ourselves in pole-position to win the Prem for the first time in a generation. We have some tentative reason for optimism ahead of the VIllans’ visit—perhaps enough to convince ourselves that we can take all three. For one, Emery faces serious selection dilemmas. He’ll be without the services of a full half-dozen: Kamara, Buendia, Mings, Cash, Ramsey, and Lenglet have all been ruled out due to injury. Perhaps more significantly, Douglas Luiz will serve the first of a two-match suspension after being booked for the tenth time. Aside from Ollie Watkins, Luiz might just be Villa’s most-valuable player.
Still, to revisit the point from which we started, we really shouldn’t underestimate Emery’s ability to coaz inferior squads towards something approximating a whole greater than the sum of its parts. After all, we’ve witnessed first-hand the magic he can conjure despite drawing a very, very short stick. In fact, if anything, he might be at his best having drawn that short stick. Villa look likely to have secured a Europa League spot already; lying just out of reach at the moment is a Champions League spot. A draw would suit Emery’s ambitions all too well.
For ourselves, we simply have to convince ourselves that the mid-week draw with Bayern is a positive. If nothing else, we didn’t suffer a humiliating 0-3 thrashing at home to a Serie A side, à la Liverpool. For as much as we might revel in that rout, we have to keep at least one eye on the reality that a Liverpool deprived of continental commitments is a LIverpool all the more committed to winning the Prem. With that in mind, we simply have to take this match by the scruff, even if seizing all three points helps Tottenham nose ahead of VIlla in the quest for that last Champions League spot.
Ours is the last match of the weekend. In other words, by the time we kick off, we’ll know how Man City and Liverpool have fared, not that we should need to know how they’ve fared to motivate ourselves. David Coote will oversee our match, and I have no real gripes against him. We’ve gone 6W 2D 2L when he’s been at the wheel. Not bad but not great, considering the opponents we’ve faced. Put simply, this might be the most-signficant opponent we’ve faced under his supervision.
Whatever these external factors might amount to, we simply have to take all three. There’s just no other way to look at it. If there are any positives to be taken from our midweek draw with Bayern, it’s that we can and will go toe-to-toe with Europe’s best and outplay them—and if we can eliminate or at least minimise our own mistakes, we’ll earn the result we crave. In the short term, then, we have to look at that draw as grist for the mill if not fuel for the fire. Sensing then winning the Champions League is that much further out of reach (even after admitting that getting past Real Madrid or Man City was always a tall order), we can’t afford to let the Prem slip through our fingers—not, at least on this matchday.
Somehow, I sense that our lads will reflect on that midweek draw and extract some irritation, some determination, some inspiration. I sense that they’ll object to having been pegged back and will respond with some fury on Sunday. We’ll need it. Emery is a cagey, savvy manager, and we’ll have to be at our best if we expect to sustain our tilt at the title. Now is no time for mushy-headed sentimentality. It would be nice to see Villa pip Tottenham for the last Champions League spot, but we have bigger fish to fry.
Scoreline predition: Arsenal 2-0 Aston Villa. Share your own predictions in the comments-section below!