Mikel Arteta is looking forward to welcoming a red-hot Aston Villa to Emirates Stadium for a top-of-the-table clash, one which he feels will be a “beautiful game” to wrap up 2025.
Just 24 days will have passed since we were left devastated to leave Villa Park on the end of a 2-1 defeat after Emi Buendia netted in the 95th minute to extend Unai Emery’s side’s winning run, which now stands at a club record 11 matches in all competitions, eight of which have been in the Premier League.
That leaves the Villans breathing down our necks at the division’s summit, and they are now just three points behind us. That means the footballing world will be watching on in anticipation to see whether Villa’s incredible run continues, or we’ll exact revenge to ensure we end the year in first place.
Mikel is relishing the occasion, saying: “We have a really tough match. We know their level, what they are doing, but it’s a beautiful game as well to prepare and play.
“They merit to be there. Look at what they are doing and how consistent they’ve been, and what Unai has done with the club. I think they fully deserve that credit because they are doing it on the pitch where you have to show your level.
“We’ll watch it back. I have a few ideas and things that we have to do better. It was quite cruel as well, the way we lost it, but we’ll learn from it.”
When pressed if the last-gasp defeat earlier in the month could fire us up for the rematch, Mikel added: “If you use that motivation and that anger in the right manner, for sure.”
The Villa fixture is our final game of 2025, and the New Year’s Eve fireworks coincide with the opening of the January transfer window, and a month of speculation around whether we will add players or move some others on during the first month of the year.
Mikel admits that we’re always monitoring the market to see if any deals can be done to help bolster our squad to cover ourselves if more injuries strike, but he is still unsure as to whether any incomings or outgoings will be happening just yet.
“We’re going to be really aware of the situation and the timescale of certain players [returning from injury],” he suggested. “If you go from the front line to the back line, that’s the depth that you need. When you look across the other clubs, they have 24 or 25 players, so there’s nothing special in our squad.
“The thing is, we’ve had more injuries than expected, some of them not avoidable, I would say, but we want to be better, and we know how important the part of having the right availability with players is going to play in the season.
“The window is there. We’re Arsenal and we have to be looking at it and saying ‘OK, what do we need?’ We have to be actively looking, and then can we do it or not? That’s a different story, but our job is to always be very prepared because something can happen.”
On departures, he added: “Again, we assess every situation. I leave that much more to Andrea [Berta] to understand what’s happening in the market and then the individual players obviously. We have to assess where we are with each of them and get the best situation.”
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