Barclays Premier League: Arsenal vs Aston Villa – Preview

This is it. The moment you have all been waiting for. Tomorrow marks the return of Premier League after a three month break. Arsenal return to action with a home game against Aston Villa tomorrow afternoon.

The summer has been one of frustration for Arsenal fans. When the final ball was kicked in May and Champions League football was secured yet again for Arsenal, it appeared as though Arsenal were set to finally spend big. Yet, sitting here in mid-August, unsurprisingly (to most Arsenal fans at least) the Gunners have only signed one player. Yaya Sanogo arrived on a free from Auxerre after his contract expired at the French club. Arsenal paid Auxerre a small compensation fee, but other than that, as of yet, there are no other signings this summer.

The squad is looking very thin right now. Arsene Wenger admits the club do need to add and insists they will before the transfer deadline. With a lot of players leaving the club earlier this summer, as well as a fair few injuries to first-team players, it leaves Arsenal worryingly short for tomorrow.

You have players like Frimpong potentially getting onto our bench again. I have nothing against Frimpong, but it seems clear to me that he doesn’t have a long-term future with us. We’re very short, so why would you send somebody like Coquelin out on loan?. It won’t be long before Park Chu-Young and Nicklas Bendtner are back in the first-team squads. Yes, those two are still on our wage bill!.

Team News: This brings me nicely onto the injury news. Arsenal will be missing both their captain and vice-captain for the Villa clash. Thomas Vermaelen is out with a back injury and Mikel Arteta is out for at least six weeks with a thigh injury.

Nacho Monreal also has a back injury, whilst Abou Diaby is still a long-term injury. There were rumours online suggesting that Yaya Sanogo was injured too, but I haven’t read anything on the club website or BBC / Sky Sports to suggest he is out. In fact, the BBC say he could make his debut tomorrow, which would certainly suggest he is fit.

Ryo Miyaichi is still out with a rib problem, but Arsene Wenger says he should be back in training by next week.

As for the visitors, Yacouba Sylla has a twisted ankle, so he isn’t expected to be back for this game, whilst Chris Herd has a calf injury.

Unlike Arsenal, Villa have been very active in the transfer market so far this summer, with no less than 6 first-team signings (Aleksandar Tonev, Jores Okore, Leandro Bacuna, Nicklas Helenius, Antonio Luna and Jed Steer) so there should be some debutants in the Villa line-up.

Arsenal will need their fans behind them tomorrow. I’m sure that a shaky start in this game would leave a lot of fans upset and frustrated. I’m sure that if we are losing at half time that there will be boos. Arsenal can have no excuses any more for their lack of transfer activity (coming in, there’s been plenty of outs!) so if there are boos then I can hardly blame the fans for that.

I’d rather not see it happen because the players don’t deserve it on the first day of the season. They’ve done nothing wrong, it’s not their fault that the club haven’t strengthened either.

Hopefully the atmosphere is good tomorrow, I’m hoping they’ll be no reason for booing!.

I’m excited for us to get going again and let’s see where this season takes us!. Olivier Giroud has been banging the goals in during the pre-season, fingers crossed he can do it in the league too!!!.

Arsenal will be hoping Olivier Giroud can bring his pre-season form into the new season, starting tomorrow against Aston Villa.