{"id":379272,"date":"2025-12-30T00:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/379272\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T00:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:14:09","slug":"aston-villas-unlikely-rise-to-premier-league-title-race-arsenal-game-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/379272\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa&#8217;s unlikely rise to Premier League title race, Arsenal game preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Aston Villa were on a five-match winless run to start the Premier League season, the team looked more like potential relegation candidates than title contenders.<\/p>\n<p>Unai Emery was describing his players as \u201clazy&#8221; and the club&#8217;s big names \u2014 including England internationals Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers \u2014 were showing no form at all.<\/p>\n<p>There were major concerns about the club\u2019s lack of activity in the transfer window.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/tennis\/news-2025-nick-kyrgios-aryna-sabalenka-battle-of-the-sexes-backlash-criticism-response-comments-20251230-p5nqmg.html\" class=\"Link-styles__Wrapper-sc-b307e8cd-0 cqBmwR\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyrgios, Sabalenka fire back at &#8216;negative&#8217; reaction<\/a><\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/cricket\/the-ashes-2025-marnus-labuschagne-form-andrew-mcdonald-comments-australia-v-england-20251229-p5nqm2.html\" class=\"Link-styles__Wrapper-sc-b307e8cd-0 cqBmwR\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Coach details major Marnus flaw as form slump returns<\/a><\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/combat-sports\/boxing-news-2025-anthony-joshua-car-accident-in-nigeria-two-dead-jake-paul-knockout-win-20251230-p5nqlt.html\" class=\"Link-styles__Wrapper-sc-b307e8cd-0 cqBmwR\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Champ in fatal car crash a week after knocking out Jake Paul<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How, then, can you explain the position Villa find themselves in heading into 2026?<\/p>\n<p>On the back of 11-straight victories in all competitions, Villa are on their best winning streak in more than a century and are now a genuine title contender.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/d1261e3b0da92fc3f48bba4c7cc77f092755ba3e.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"d40ab0ad209f9332-text d40ab0ad209f9332-body-2\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Ollie Watkins celebrates scoring against Chelsea\u00a0Aston Villa FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>A win over first-placed Arsenal on Wednesday morning (AEDT) and Villa will then be tied on points with the Gunners at the top of the league halfway through the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Manchester City have also broken away from the rest of the pack, with Liverpool a further seven points back in fourth place.<\/p>\n<p>Football&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/9.nine.com.au\/vsf4jt\" class=\"Link-styles__Wrapper-sc-b307e8cd-0 cqBmwR\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">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<p>Villa will not be scared of Arsenal. After all, just three weeks ago, Villa scored a last-gasp goal to defeat the leaders 2-1 at home and keep their winning run going.<\/p>\n<p>That continued on Sunday (AEDT) with a come-from-behind 2-1 triumph at fifth-placed Chelsea, secured thanks to two second-half goals by Watkins.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the team&#8217;s success is being put down to Emery, the coach whose savvy tactics, well-timed substitutions and belief in his players leaves no task insurmountable.<\/p>\n<p>Like when Villa trailed \u2014 and were being outclassed \u2014 at Stamford Bridge before Watkins&#8217; entrance off the bench.<\/p>\n<p>Or when Villa twice went behind at West Ham two weeks earlier before winning 3-2.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6865eb435bccc870061079771bd309e9f283055e.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"d40ab0ad209f9332-text d40ab0ad209f9332-body-2\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Unai Emery\u00a0Aston Villa FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Or when Villa went 2-0 down at Brighton in early-December, only to fight back for a 4-3 victory. Two weeks before that, Villa conceded early at Leeds and rallied for a 2-1 win.<\/p>\n<p>It means Villa head to Emirates Stadium \u2014 where Arsenal hasn&#8217;t lost in any competition this season and has taken 25 points from a possible 27 in the Premier League \u2014 seeking a sixth-straight away win.<\/p>\n<p>The match might be regarded as much a test of Arsenal&#8217;s title credentials as Villa&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot really,\u201d Emery, a former Arsenal manager, replied on the weekend when asked if his team can stay in the title race.<\/p>\n<p>No one will believe him three days later if Villa \u2014 most recently English champion in 1981 \u2014 rack up another win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Aston Villa were on a five-match winless run to start the Premier League season, the team looked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-379272","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\/379272","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=379272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}