{"id":369610,"date":"2025-12-24T21:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369610\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:24:11","slug":"premier-league-2025-aston-villa-the-unexpected-team-greats-of-the-game-believe-are-up-to-the-challenge-of-three-horse-premier-league-title-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369610\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League 2025 | Aston Villa: The unexpected team greats of the game believe are up to the challenge of three-horse Premier League title race"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Premier League<\/a> title race is heating up, and one surprise team could lift the trophy.<\/p>\n

Leading into the 2025-26 season, it was rare to find a pundit who believed that Aston Villa<\/a> would be in the race for the title, let alone be sitting third on the table by Christmas.<\/p>\n

Had you asked the same pundits after five matches, Villa would still be an unlikely prediction to take home the title. Yet here we are now, 17 rounds in and in the title chase.<\/p>\n

Football’s new home, Stan Sport<\/a>, is the only place to watch the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, FA Cup, WSL, European World Cup qualifiers, J.League, NSWL and K League<\/p>\n

Liverpool<\/a>, Manchester City<\/a>, Arsenal<\/a> and Chelsea<\/a> were the most common predictions to take home the title – and all four clubs are still within shot of doing so.<\/p>\n

But a remarkable turnaround under manager Unai Emery has seen Villa rise into genuine threats to win the league<\/a>, which all but looked like Arsenal’s to lose just one month ago.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Two changes confirmed for Boxing Day as England scrambles<\/a><\/p>\n

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READ MORE: F1 champ hails Piastri as his most formidable teammate yet<\/a><\/p>\n

Villa have won 10 of their past 11 games and are on a nine-game winning streak across all competitions – and their rivals during that time frame have not been easy.<\/p>\n

Arsenal and Manchester City currently sit just above Villa on the table, and both have fallen victim to the power of the Villains<\/a> in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

A victory over Chelsea on Sunday would tighten the three-horse title race, while simultaneously leaving the Blues languishing 10 points adrift of the top three.<\/p>\n

\"Aston<\/p>\n

Aston Villa players celebrates a victory.\u00a0Aston Villa FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

It is a match that Australian great Mark Bosnich<\/a> recognised would be integral for Villa to prove to doubters that they truly are in the title race and not just impostors.<\/p>\n

“The next game against Chelsea and then the game after against Arsenal will tell us a lot about their title credentials,” Bosnich said on Stan Sport’s Added Time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Chelsea beat Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge 3-0 last season, quite convincingly.<\/p>\n

“I still maintain from the start of the season that Chelsea are a dark horse, and they remain that. But (Villa) can turn around and say that they have beaten Arsenal, Manchester City.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got a manager in Unai Emery who has won titles. Regardless of what anyone says in terms of being a Cup manager, he has won a title.<\/p>\n

“I think they genuinely are title contenders.”<\/p>\n

Villa’s only downfall could be the impact of playing in several leagues, as they are a good chance in the Europa League, but Arsenal and Manchester City also have that problem.<\/p>\n

If it were up to Bosnich, he admits he would opt to play his second team in the Europa League until the quarter-final stage in the best interest of winning the Premier League.<\/p>\n

But Craig Foster still believes the title race is not truly a three-horse fight.<\/p>\n

“The reason why I think it’s not real (for Villa to win) is that I think it is still just a two-horse race, generally speaking,” Foster, a former Australian captain, said.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to see Villa go and take the title. Nothing would please me more this season. It would be unbelievable, fantastic. But if you looked at percentages, you’d probably say they are 30 per cent (chance of winning), no more.<\/p>\n

“The other two are just too strong. Guardiola’s got them back, and Man City are firing. They are under the radar a little bit, but they are just firing every week. He’s got them functioning perfectly.<\/p>\n

“Liverpool are coming back, and Chelsea are still up and down.”<\/p>\n

Australia’s first-ever Premier League champion Robbie Slater agreed with Foster, but conceded he would not rule Liverpool out of shaking up the title race.<\/p>\n

“I think Liverpool are equal fourth with Chelsea now, they are back in it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If they can have a good January transfer window, I don’t think they are dead.<\/p>\n

“Then again, I still think it is between Arsenal and City. They are the favourites at the moment. The Christmas period can be fatal for some clubs; you’re playing so much.<\/p>\n

“Chelsea is still a good side. A month ago, I thought, ‘Ok, this is it’, and then they’ve just been very inconsistent. This is a massive game for them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Premier League title race is heating up, and one surprise team could lift the trophy. Leading into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-369610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}