It’s matchday folks! And I feel like I’m going to be saying this a lot for the remainder of the season….but it absolutely IS a ‘must win’, because even though Brentford have a great home record, they held City to a 2-2 draw on Tuesday night, I suspect Liverpool might win this one. They’ve drawn their last two games but they’ve been putting in performances that suggests they’ve been a little bit unlucky, so I think that might change today. So with that in mind, a win for us is an imperative.

But it is certainly not a given. Villa are, as we know, a good side who will trouble us today. I saw a stat from Orbinho yesterday that said that in the last 10 games they’ve kept five clean sheets against us. Last season it was they who essentially de-railed our title confirmation, because if we’d have won that game we’d be the reigning champions right now given how the rest of the games played out. It feels a little bit like deja vu in that regard, because if Villa win today and Liverpool win, I suspect the title is done for us. Chasing down a side who will most likely be 10 points clear of you with 16 games to go is supremely unlikely. In short, we’re running out of games so we can’t afford to drop any points for the foreseeable future.

The good news is that the team will still be pumped after midweek. That will have made London Colney a hive of excitement on Thursday and yesterday, so the hope has to be that the excitement carries through to today. And I have to hope that it does for the fans too. We need to start strong, start well, keep Villa on the back foot.

Villa will be missing Pau Torres, Barkley and John McGinn for today’s game and personally the latter being out is a blessing for us. He’s scored goals against us, given good performances in the past and in the game at their ground he was the one getting involved in a bit of sh*thousery by booting the ball at Saliba whilst he was on the floor. He didn’t bank on Ben White being in the vicinity and that led to an amusing bit of karma as White caught him with a follow up. Neither player will be available today but the news that White is back in training will be beneficial. Diego Carlos may also be out, although whether he is available I’m not sure as I don’t think Emery has been too specific.

On our side Mikel Arteta confirmed that we will be checking on the availability of one or two players, but the longer-term absentees will not return. I suspect he is talking about Calafiori there, but given the brilliant performance of MLS in the NLD, I suspect he’ll keep his place and you have to say that is deserved. With that in mind, I doubt there will be too many changes from Wednesday. Arteta might have a hankering for a switch up between Trossard, Martinelli and Sterling, with Martinelli starting, but it depends on which flavour of Martinelli he might fancy. I do think he might start him against Villa, perhaps for Sterling. Sterling did ok, he pressed and he had a few good runs, but that chance Lewis-Skelly fashioned for him in the opening minutes in midweek keep replaying in my mind. If that’s Martinelli running in I think he gets on to the ball quicker, drives past the ‘keeper and slots us one-nil up. So perhaps that is something that Arteta should consider?

Looking at a few stats and Villa’s away form is quite surprising, I have to say, because they’ve lost half of the games they’ve played. They’ve also conceded the fourth most goals in the league away from home (19) so you’d hope we’d be getting chances today. If I think back to how Emery sets his team up, they tend to press a little higher and if they do that today, we’ll have space to run in behind, which is why I think we should absolutely be looking at Martinelli to start. I don’t think Emery is set up to be a Low Block FC manager, which means we might get a similar game to The Scum on Wednesday, although we had them pinned back for the first half so they didn’t have too much opportunity to leave too much space. But we did find some in that first half (Trossard’s goal as an example) and I am hoping we get that this evening.

The big challenge will be in transition because Villa have good players, clever players, rapid players do do us dirty. That’s how they scored their two goals to beat us last season and in Watkins they have a striker who we know can bag against us. I have also been repeatedly impressed with Rogers too; he looked good in the game at Villa Park and I suspect he’ll have a role to play for them today. So for Villa the gameplan will be simple: get the ballfrom back to front quickly when it turns over and look to feed Bailey’s pace and Watkins’ clinical finishing. Bailey plays wide right and so it will be interesting to see how MLS does against him. The good thing about Myles is that he is rapid too, so hopefully he can keep pace with Bailey if he gets in behind. But he’ll need some help; he’s still an 18-year-old kid and he’s operating against a seasoned pro in Bailey (if he starts).

We also have Donyell Malen returning to play against us and we know how ex-Arsenal players always play well. If he gets on the pitch, we have to keep him quiet.

In terms of what bookies are saying, you can tell that our profligacy in front of goal has them cautious, because I’ve seen a fair few draws called from them and the odds are tight. But there are a few predicting a win for us. Whilst SportsMole is saying 1-1, Mark Lawrenson is going 2-1 Villa, we have Merson, Sutton and that Jones knows fella from Sky Sports all going 2-1. Sutton’s comments were interesting because he talked about how they allow Villa plenty of chances in midweek and if they do the same for us, it’ll be interesting to see if we continue to miss good chances. I keep thinking about that late Odegaard miss on Wednesday and thinking “surely our luck has to turn with things like that eventually, right?”. In reality it’s not luck, but we do need to be having a pop a bit more. Less walkie-into-the-net and more have a pop, lads.

I’m nervous, but I’ve got the Management with me today, so hopefully she is our good luck charm. She usually see’s s win. Not always, but usually. Last game she went to was Leicester at home this season. 2-2 going into injury time, she turned to me on 88 minutes and said “don’t worry. They’re going to win”. I said “it’s not our day”.

Ndidi own goal on 94 minutes.

After the celebrations had ended and just before we kicked off to finish the game, she turned to me again and said “I think they’ll score another one”.

Havertz on 99 minutes. Finished four two.

Make of that what you will.

Catch you tomorrow. We’ll be doing a lunchtime Same Old Arsenal pod – myself and James – so join us around 2pm.