Aston Villa take joint-record winning run into title tussle with Arsenal

The final Premier League matchday of 2025 is headlined by a blockbuster clash between two title rivals at Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal were always expected to be in the hunt for a first league crown since their Invincible season in 2003-04, and after 18 matchdays, the Opta supercomputer assigns them a 64.9% chance of becoming champions of England.

Manchester City were also favoured by many in pre-season and are assigned a 26.7% title probability, but Aston Villa's challenge has now come out of the blue – they win the title in 7.6% of season simulations.

Villa could achieve a new club-record winning streak on Tuesday, and for Unai Emery, accomplishing that feat against the team that sacked him in November 2019 would be particularly sweet.

But which way will the game go? We dive into the Opta data to pick out the storylines and players to watch.

What's expected?

As well as being favourites for the title, Arsenal are also backed by the Opta supercomputer to win this match.

Across 10,000 match simulations, the Gunners were victorious in 58.6%, with Villa winning 19.8%. The remaining 21.5% of sims finished all square.

That is despite recent history in this fixture being on the Villans' side. Emiliano Buendia's late goal guided Villa to a 2-1 victory in the reverse fixture on December 6, and they could now secure a Premier League double over Arsenal.

It would be the third time they have done so in six seasons, having previously accomplished that feat in 2020-21 and 2023-24. 

They had only previously done so once since the Premier League's foundation, in the inaugural 1992-93 campaign.

Villa are also unbeaten in their last two away league games against Arsenal, beating them 2-0 in April 2024 – a result that proved hugely damaging for the Gunners' title hopes – and drawing 2-2 in January last season. They last had a longer run without defeat at the Emirates between 2006-07 and 2008-09 (three).

But the timing of this fixture could be a good omen for Arsenal, who have won their final league game in four of the last five calendar years, with the exception being a 2-1 defeat at Fulham on New Year's Eve in 2023.

Villa, by contrast, have won their final league game in just two of the last 13 calendar years (six draws, five losses), beating Middlesbrough 1-0 in 2017 and Burnley 3-2 in 2023.

Can Arsenal continue rolling through injury crisis?

At Monday's pre-match press conference, Mikel Arteta said Arsenal must be active in the January transfer window after "surviving" the first half of the campaign.

The Gunners have battled injury problems all campaign, with Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Magalhaes all enduring long stints out, while Ben White, Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera and Jurrien Timber have sustained injuries lately.

Arteta has used 24 different players in the Premier League this season, with only seven clubs using more (West Ham – 28, Nottingham Forest – 27, Sunderland – 26, Wolves, Brighton, Sunderland and Man Utd all 25).

Key centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes made an earlier-than-anticipated return from injury in Saturday's 2-1 win over Brighton, in a major boost for Arteta. 

Since the start of the 2023-24 season, the Gunners have a 68.4% win rate in the Premier League (52/76) with him involved, compared to a 50% win ratio without him (50%, 9/18).

But with Timber, White and Mosquera already out, Calafiori suffered an injury in the warm-up ahead of facing the Seagulls, meaning Declan Rice had to play as a makeshift right-back.

Rice coped admirably, enjoying more touches (76) and making more interceptions (three) than any other player on the pitch, while also recovering possession four times.

It remains to be seen whether Arsenal will have any of their defenders back in the mix for this game, though they at least know Villa will be without their own first-choice right-back Matty Cash – as well as midfielder Boubacar Kamara – due to suspension.

Arsenal have been less affected by injuries in attack, though, and Arteta will want to see an improvement with three of their last four goals in home Premier League games being own goals from opposing players (two versus Wolves, one versus Brighton).

Viktor Gyokeres endured another difficult outing, failing to score from three shots with an expected goals (xG) value of 0.6, while Bukayo Saka's seven efforts were the most by an Arsenal player without scoring since Saka himself had seven versus Leicester City in 2024.

Emery targets place in history against former employers

This will be Emery's third away Premier League match against Arsenal since leaving the club, and he has won one and drawn one thus far.

No former Gunners boss has ever gone three away league games in a row without losing after leaving the club.

Should his team emerge victorious on Tuesday, Emery would write his name into the Villa record books.

Their current 11-match winning run is the joint-longest in their club history, having also won 11 in a row on two occasions, in September 1897 and March 1914.

Eight of Villa's wins have come in the Premier League, with this their longest run of victories in league play since a sequence of nine wins between October and December 1910.

They still have a long way to go to think about a Premier League-record run, with Liverpool and Manchester City having both recorded 18-match winning streaks, and there have been 27 winning runs longer than Villa's ongoing streak in the Premier League previously.

But Villa only need three more victories to achieve the second-longest winning run by a Premier League team across all competitions. Man City's 21-game streak in 2020-21 remains the best-ever, with Arsenal's 13-match run in 2002 the next-best. 

It has been a remarkable turnaround from Emery's men, who were 18th in the Premier League table and without a victory at the end of matchday five (three draws, two losses).

Since then, they have won more games (12) and more points (36) than any other team in the division.

Another positive result here would represent a real statement of their intent, even if Emery insists any talk of a title challenge remains premature. 

PLAYERS TO WATCH 

Arsenal – Eberechi Eze

Eze has been involved in five goals in four home Premier League starts against Villa (two goals, three assists), all for former side Crystal Palace between May 2021 and February 2025, registering at least one assist in three of those four starts.

He has also scored in his team's final Premier League match of the calendar year in each of the last three years, all for Crystal Palace (2022 versus Bournemouth, 2023 versus Brentford, 2024 versus Southampton).

The only players to achieve this in four years in a row are Dimitar Berbatov (five from 2007 to 2011) and Harry Kane (four from 2016 to 2019).

Aston Villa – Ollie Watkins

Watkins came off the bench to score twice in Villa's 2-1 victory over Chelsea on Saturday, and the striker will relish another away game in London, which falls on his 30th birthday.

Since the start of 2020-21, only Erling Haaland (24) has bettered Watkins' 18 goals in away Premier League matches in the capital.

The England international has been in and out this season, but this is an ideal chance to stake his claim as Villa's first-choice forward.