Premier League Week 2 predictions, expert picks for every game: Arsenal vs Aston Villa revenge and more

Five years ago, Unai Emery’s shock selections cost Arsenal a Champions League qualification. In 2024 they did much better, with Arsene Wenger’s successor shattering his former employer’s title dreams by taking six points from a possible six. Turn just one of those defeats into a win and Mikel Arteta will be a champion.

Of course there is no personal animosity between the Basque natives, in fact Arteta is never short of praise for his predecessor. Anyone who remembers the fire that can be ignited in the Arsenal manager by something as innocuous as a tweet from Ivan Toney, who saw the defeat inflicted on him after showing the courage to beat West Ham in December, will know that Arteta is intent on revenge. “I don’t take anything personally,” said the manager in the pre-match press conference. “I have a will to win and to prepare the team in the best possible way, no matter who we are playing against.”

The desire to win will surely be even stronger given the manner of those defeats. On each occasion Arsenal played hugely impressive football, indeed Arteta made a point after the home meeting in April when he labelled their first half “the best performance of their season so far”. In that period they had 14 shots for 1.45 expected goals (xG) without a return. Over the full stretch of their two meetings with Villa they had 30 shots to their opponents’ 21, 1.51 from 3.04 xG, 29 from 84 penalty box touches. The total score? 3-0 to Aston Villa.

If Leandro Trossard had not fired a close-range shot into the feet of Emiliano Martinez or Bukayo Saka had not made better contact with his weaker foot several months ago, Arsenal could have been champions. Such are the odds when you are competing with Manchester City or indeed trying to beat Emery’s ruthless Aston Villa. The margins could have been even greater. Supporters will point to the controversial equaliser being denied at Villa Park for Kai Havertz’s handball; in his preparations Arteta will no doubt point to how many other chances his side wasted.

Villa, a team that averaged 2.25 offsides per game in the Premier League last season, were caught four times at Villa Park and five times at Emirates Stadium. Now, it should be noted that this is typical of Emery. His side’s 167 successful offsides last season were 42 more than the league’s next-best team Tottenham, the only other team to reach triple figures. The high line marshalled by Pau Torres was helped by the pressure Villa put on the ball further up the pitch, where they were adept at forcing opponents to take just one more touch. By that time the forward had already made his run and Villa had won themselves a free kick.

Similarly, in Arsenal’s case, their series of offsides were a result of their own inability to get the ball out quickly enough, rather than anything Villa did right. In fact, in this example below Diego Carlos did everything wrong, dropping too far behind the rest of his line and giving Gabriel Jesus space to work in. For himself, despite manageable pressure, Martin Odegaard took too long to release the ball and Villa got away with giving away a pass in their own penalty area.

Similarly at Villa Park, Oleksandr Zinchenko has all the space he could possibly need, and on this occasion he has the advantage of two men trying to get in behind this skittish backline. Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli both have the pace to give themselves a little more space, but they may also feel that Zinchenko should have left them sooner.

Many of the other seven have a similar look to him. At Villa Park in particular Arsenal looked surprised at being given so much space to attack out from the back. This time around they will surely be more prepared to take advantage of the gamble Emery is making. Get it right and avoid the poor form in front of goal that cursed him and Arsenal last season. Needed They have enough firepower to get the job done, even against a team as impressive as Villa, who looked the other way earlier in the weekend.

Scroll down for our predictions for all the games in week two of the Premier League season:

Premier League Week Two Picks

Saturday, August 24
Brighton 2, Manchester United 2
Crystal Palace 1, West Ham 1
Fulham 0, Leicester 0
Manchester City 4, Ipswich 1
Southampton 1, Nottingham Forest 1
tottenham 2, everton 0
Aston Villa 1, Arsenal 2

Sunday, August 25
Bournemouth 2, Newcastle 1
Wolves 0, Chelsea 1
Liverpool 2, Brentford 0

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