While Villa will aim to take advantage of Arsenal's jellied legs and hit to the confidence, a few more injury concerns - especially to lynchpin Luiz - is hardly ideal for the hosts.
Villa Park has not been a happy hunting ground for the Gunners in recent times, but Villa are still lacking that little bit of consistency under Gerrard, and we think Arteta's side have what it takes to shade a close contest and consolidate their hold on fourth spot.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Arsenal win with a probability of 44.47%. A win for Aston Villa had a probability of 30.06% and a draw had a probability of 25.5%.
The most likely scoreline for an Arsenal win was 0-1 with a probability of 10.15%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (9.1%) and 0-2 (7.64%). The likeliest Aston Villa win was 1-0 (8.04%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.09%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with a 10.2% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted a 0-1 win for Arsenal in this match and our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted the win for Arsenal.
