We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League game at the Emirates Stadium with our Arsenal vs Aston Villa prediction and preview. Can Mikel Arteta’s team close the gap to Premier League leaders Liverpool?
Arsenal vs Aston Villa Stats: The Key Insights
- Arsenal are heavy favourites to win this game with the Opta supercomputer, doing so in 61.2% of pre-match simulations.
- The Gunners are unbeaten in their last 13 Premier League home games (W10 D3) since a 2-0 defeat to Villa last April.
- Only against Brighton & Hove Albion (7) has Ollie Watkins scored more Premier League goals than his five against Arsenal.
Fresh off securing their first win of 2025 in Wednesday’s north London derby, Arsenal are looking to put more pressure on Premier League leaders Liverpool when they welcome Aston Villa to the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.
Nerves will have been tested when Son Heung-min put Tottenham ahead in midweek, only for a Dominic Solanke own goal and Leandro Trossard to turn things around as Arsenal ran out 2-1 winners.
Villa also had a productive Matchday 21, ruining David Moyes’ homecoming at Everton with a 1-0 victory at Goodison Park thanks to Ollie Watkins’ second-half goal. It ended a run of five straight away defeats in the Premier League for Villa, who last won consecutive away games in August.
Arsenal will be confident being on home soil, as they’re unbeaten in their last 13 Premier League home games (W10 D3) since a 2-0 defeat to Villa last April. The Gunners last had a longer run without defeat at the Emirates between August and April in 2018-19 under now-Villa boss Unai Emery (16).
If Mikel Arteta’s side find the net they should at least walk away with a point, having not lost any of their last 44 games in all competitions in which they’ve scored a goal (W36 D8) since a 2-1 defeat against Fulham in December 2023.
Arsenal came through their test against Spurs despite missing several players through injury, but one player who has made a difference since returning from the treatment table is Martin Ødegaard. In fact, since his first start following his return from injury against Chelsea in November, Ødegaard has created 42 chances in all competitions, almost twice as many as any other Arsenal player (Declan Rice, 23). Fourteen of these have come in his last two games alone (10 vs Man Utd, 4 vs Spurs).
Watkins was on the scoresheet for Villa against Everton and has now been involved in 98 goals (68 goals, 30 assists) in 167 Premier League games, with only Gabriel Agbonlahor reaching triple figures for Villa in the competition (108). He will be hoping to have more joy against Arsenal too, having only scored more top-flight goals against Brighton (7) than against the Gunners (5), with three of those coming at the Emirates.
As for team news, the hosts will continue to be without Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Ethan Nwaneri through injury, while Arteta remains uncertain if Riccardo Calafiori will be back in time to feature here.
The visitors could give a debut to new signing Donyell Malen, who was once on the books at Arsenal. The former Borussia Dortmund forward could feature, but Pau Torres, Ross Barkley and John McGinn remain unavailable through injury.
Arsenal vs Aston Villa Head-to-Head
Arsenal lost this exact fixture 2-0 last season. They’ve not lost consecutive home league games against Villa since their first two meetings in the Premier League.
Villa have won five of their last 10 Premier League meetings with Arsenal (L5), as many as they had in their previous 46 against the Gunners (D14 L27).
Arsenal did win 2-0 at Villa Park in August, with Trossard and Thomas Partey scoring the goals.
Arsenal vs Aston Villa Prediction
The Opta supercomputer is backing Arsenal to make it back-to-back wins, coming out on top in this one in 61.2% of pre-match simulations.
Aston Villa repeat their victory from last season in this fixture just 18.4% of the time, while the draw occurred in the remaining 20.4%.
Having said that, none of the last 18 Premier League meetings between Arsenal (12 wins) and Villa (6) have been drawn. The Gunners have only had a longer run against Newcastle (19 from 2012- 2022), while Villa have only had a longer run against Tottenham (a current run of 19).
Arsenal vs Aston Villa Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is 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.
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