Aston Villa vs Arsenal 22/07/20

22 July 2020

Aston Villa and Arsenal go head-to-head at Villa Park in the penultimate round of the 2019/20 Premier League season, as the traveling side seek a seventh successive win in the top-flight H2Hs.

The hosts have gone from three consecutive Premier League defeats ‘to nil’ to two straight matches without a loss (W1, D1), but they need a win here to keep their hopes of avoiding relegation alive. Sitting three points behind 17th-placed Watford, Dean Smith’s men have won just one of their last six league home games (D1, L4). It will be a daunting prospect for Aston Villa to improve that form now, as they take on a side they’ve failed to win against in all 17 of their top-flight H2Hs held at this venue in the 21st century (D7, L10). What’s more, the Lions have scored under 1.5 goals in 15 of those clashes, which has been true in eight of their last 11 Premier League home outings.

Meanwhile, just one of Arsenal’s eight Premier League matches post restart has ended in a draw (W4, L3), with four of those seven results (win/loss) seeing the winner on the day keep a clean sheet and yielding at least a two-goal margin. Against this backdrop, Mikel Arteta’s team have established themselves as ‘stalemate specialists’ on the road. Indeed, just one side have played out more draws away from home than Arsenal (eight) this season. The ‘clean-sheet’ theme remains significant, though, as six of the visitors’ ten Premier League away results this campaign saw the winning side shut out the losing one.