Aston Villa v Arsenal: Premier League – live! | Football

43 mins: Arsenal send a set piece into the Villa area. Martinez claims it, and Xhaka sprints 15 yards to get in his way and stop him releasing the ball quickly. Every bit as cynical as the tactical fouls that are now normally rewarded with a booking, and with similar intentions.

42 mins: Replays show Partey’s “marking” of Mings at a corner a couple of minutes ago, very much the kind of shenanigans that a VAR might have been interested in.

40 mins: “Why do referees never book players for surrounding him like the Arsenal players did there?” asks Samuel of that melee. “He’s given the foul is going to book Mings, everything is in control but those players go steaming in and make everything look worse. Not one of them checked to see if Saka was OK so it would seem getting someone getting sent off is more important than making sure their team mate is ok. Any wonder the respect campaign died before it started.” I have had the pleasure of watching most Premier League sides beat my team this season, and have noted the ones who did so with grace and good sporstmanship (Crystal Palace impressed, unexpectedly), and those who exhibited little of either. Arsenal were very much towards the extreme end of the latter group.

38 mins: A nice Arsenal break ends with Tierney waiting a moment until Cash is upon him, and then hitting a cross straight into him.

36 mins: A pass towards Saka runs out of play, and the home fans boo the prospect of his involvement, and cheer when he doesn’t reach it.

35 mins: McGinn also gets booked for something he did during that little fracas. Saka is treated on the pitch for a couple of minutes but is back on his feet and ready to play on.

32 mins: Handbags! Mings brings Saka down with the follow-through from a sliding challenge and most of the Arsenal team react angrily, most of the Villa team come over to stand up for their man, and it all gets a little pushy-shovey. The referee waits for VAR to have a good look and then shows Mings a yellow – it was a pretty good tackle until he took Saka out, certainly not two-footed or out of control.

Arsenal, and Saka’s low shot, find a way through! Cedric’s long cross is headed down, bobbles off a few players to Saka, whose first-time half-volley isn’t cleanly hit but finds a way through a posse of players, surprises a clearly unsighted Martinez, and hits the net!

27 mins: A vague sniff of something for Villa. Coutinho’s nice flick lets Watkins run towards the Arsenal area, but Cedric Soares spots the danger and comes across to snuff it out. “It’s been interesting charting the fall and rise of Cedric’s reputation recently,” says Charles Antaki. “Pre-Tomiyasu it was dreadful, then Tomiyasu arrived and played well and Cedric was simply forgotten. Tomiyasu got injured and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as Cedric re-remerged and people recalled how rotten he was … then he played Ok … then he played well … and now it’s he’s commanding grudging near-respect. A bit more of this and he’ll turn into an indispensable legend (before he has one dreadful game and it’s down back the snake again).”

23 mins: McGinn gives the ball away really poorly on the edge of his own area, but there are enough defenders around to stop Arsenal profiting. A quarter of the way through, Arsenal remain on the front foot and Villa are yet to have a shot.

21 mins: Villa nearly conjure something, McGinn sending a lovely dipping diagonal ball into the area for Watkins, but White throws out a leg and stop it reaching him.

18 mins: Big miss! Arsenal work the ball out to Saka on the right and he exchanges passes with Odegaard, pulls the ball past the keeper at the near post and across goal, where Smith Rowe makes a last-minute burst to reach it before Lacazette and send it wide!

15 mins: Jacob Ramsey is booked for bringing Smith Rowe down with a sliding challenge.

13 mins: “I’m fortunate to be in Edinburgh today for their summer, as today is as bright and sunny as in the photo taken outside Villa Park, and the temperature is in double figures,” writes Kev. “The sunshine has brought out the Ice Cream vans and that had me wondering, will the Villa be known as Aston Vanilla if Arsenal give them a good licking today?” But what if it goes the other way? Arsenalmond?

10 mins: That’s a better save! Saka’s left-footed cross from the right is chested by Konsa and would have gone just inside the post had Martinez not tipped it wide! That would have been a really weird own goal: that was very much a deliberate chest by Konsa, not an inadvertent deflection, and I have no idea what he was thinking when he decided it was a good idea.

9 mins: The night’s first save comes from Martinez. Luckily the shot he saves comes from Partey, who from a tasty position a yard or so outside the area sidefoots straight at the keeper.

9 mins: McGinn sends in a lovely cross from the free-kick, but nobody gets on the end of it and it flicks off a defender and behind for a corner, which White heads clear.

8 mins: Soares blocks off Young’s run as he attempts a one-two with Buendia, and Villa now have a free-kick just outside Arsenal’s area.

7 mins: Arsenal have started the game well, repeatedly winning the ball back around halfway and keeping it impressively. We await Villa’s first attack.

3 mins: Shot! Young misjudges a pass to Saka, who gets free down the right and pulls back to Odegaard. It’s an almost identical pull-back to the one that led to a goal at Watford a few weeks back, and to the same player, but this time his path to goal is blocked so he lays off to Smith-Rowe, who blasts over.

2 mins: Early touches for the two keepers as McGinn’s overhit pass runs through to Leno, whose overhit pass is tapped back to Martinez by Mings.

1 min: Peeeeep! The game has begun!

This is true, except Ron was his grandad. “The day my mum found out she was pregnant with me was the day he died, and his name was Ron,” Ramsdale said last year. “He was from Bloxwich in Birmingham and they used to say ‘oh, we’re going to go see our Ron’ or ‘our Barbara’. So I’m Aaron for ‘our Ron’.”

The players are gathering in the tunnel. As I type, Emi Martinez is giving Granit Xhaka a hug.

Some injury news: Callum Chambers has “had some awareness of his muscle”, according to Steven Gerrard. Aaron Ramsdale “will be out for a few weeks”, says Mikel Arteta.

It looks a gorgeous sunny day in Birmingham, cool, bright, and generally perfect for playing, or indeed watching, a game of football.

Team news is in, and here it is. Villa make three changes and Arsenal two, the visitors saying Aaron Ramsdale has a hip injury and Gabriel Martinelli is unwell:

Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Young, McGinn, Douglas Luiz, Ramsey, Buendia, Watkins, Coutinho. Subs: Sanson, Traore, Chambers, Ings, Olsen, Bailey, Chukwuemeka, Iroegbunam, O’Reilly.
Arsenal: Leno, Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Odegaard, Partey, Xhaka, Saka, Lacazette, Smith Rowe. Subs: Holding, Pepe, Tavares, Sambi Lokonga, Elneny, Nketiah, Okonkwo, Swanson, Hutchinson.
Referee: Andrew Madley.

Well here we are. The game Mikel Arteta complained it was “not fair” for his team to play, what with also having played against Liverpool on Wednesday night. Puzzling outburst, that one. “The first thing is to protect the players and we have mentioned that many times,” he continued. “Please can we avoid the Wednesday night and the Saturday morning and travelling?” Mate, you’ve played at home midweek and then gone to Birmingham. Last week I was at a Spurs game that ended late on a Monday night and had to be in Birmingham by 10am on Tuesday morning. Do you know what? It was absolutely fine, because Birmingham isn’t very far from London. It’s not like it’s Bucharest or Bratislava. “I am not talking about Europe, I am talking about the Premier League and how we schedule the games in the Premier League,” Arteta added. “When you are in Europe it is a different story, but I am talking about the Premier League and it is very different.” Well, a bit different, the main differences being that there’s much less journey time to whinge about and a lot of the teams you have to play are less good.

Anyway, and to summarise, consider Arsenal’s excuses in early.

As for Villa, not since September, when an 88th-minute Kortney Hause goal gave them victory at Old Trafford, have they beaten a current top eight side. Indeed take away Manchester United, whom they also drew with at home in January, and Villa haven’t taken a single point from the top eight teams all season.

“The teams at the top are there for a reason,” said Steven Gerrard. “It’s about consistency, they’ve recruited well, they’ve got experience and some have got managers who have been with them for some time. That’s the area of the league we need to strive for, it’s where we want to be operating of course. I’m very much aware of the stats and those results but tomorrow gives us another opportunity to try to prove that when we’re at our best we can take points off the top teams.”

So in short, Villa want to win and Arsenal want to be somewhere else. Let’s see what happens, shall we?