Villa faces Chelsea test as Premier League title race heats up

LONDON — Aston Villa faces a tough challenge at Chelsea on Saturday after muscling its way into the Premier League title race alongside Arsenal and Manchester City.

The Gunners, top of the tree at Christmas, host Brighton, while Pep Guardiola's in-form City travels to Nottingham Forest.

With Mohamed Salah away on AFCON duty, Liverpool boss Arne Slot is grappling with a striker crisis after Alexander Isak fractured his leg.

Meanwhile, much to manager Ruben Amorim's dismay, Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes also faces a spell on the sidelines.

We look at three talking points ahead of the festive fixtures:

Emery on the charge

Unai Emery's third-placed Villa is still considered a rank outsider for the Premier League title even though it is just three points behind leader Arsenal.

Villa's 2-1 home win against Manchester United was its 10th consecutive victory in all competitions — the first time it has achieved the feat as a top-flight team since 1914.

One of the major reasons for its recent success is the form of England midfielder Morgan Rogers, who failed to register a single goal involvement in his first seven matches in all competitions.

Now it is a different story: he has recorded 11 goal involvements in his past 15 appearances and the quality of his goals has been striking.

Rogers' seven Premier League goals this season have come from just 2.86 expected goals (xG) — a metric used to determine how likely a player is to convert a chance.

But soccer analyst Opta gives Villa just a five percent chance of becoming English champion for the first time since 1981.

Emery's men have an opportunity to silence the doubters when they take on fourth-placed Chelsea, followed by a match at Arsenal just days later.

Slot's goals headache

In the early weeks of the season, Arne Slot would probably have envisaged Salah and Isak as two of his first-choice attackers.

Now the Liverpool boss has neither — Salah is with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations, while Isak faces at least two months on the sidelines after fracturing his leg against Tottenham.

Slot has steadied the ship at Anfield after a shocking run of six defeats in seven Premier League matches that left Liverpool's title defense in tatters.

A run of three wins and two draws in five league games has lifted the reigning champion into fifth spot, but there will be concerns over where the goals are going to come from ahead of the visit of bottom club Wolves.

Isak's absence will heap more pressure on the shoulders of the team's top scorer Hugo Ekitike. The summer signing has netted eight times in the Premier League — twice the tallies of Salah and Cody Gakpo.

No captain fantastic

Fernandes has been a shining light and virtually ever-present during Manchester United's recent lean years.

But United boss Amorim is going to have to plan for a period without his talisman, after the Portugal midfielder pulled up with an apparent hamstring injury in his side's 2-1 defeat at Villa Park on Sunday.

While the prognosis is unclear, Amorim has already ruled Fernandes out of United's clash against Newcastle at Old Trafford on Friday (Saturday, Beijing time), among a list of absentees, with the Portuguese boss urging the rest of his squad to "step up" in the absence of his "impossible to replace" captain.

"It's massive," defender Diogo Dalot told Sky Sports. "We don't know how bad it is, but for him to come off (in) the game, we know how tough he is."

Playmaker Fernandes has five goals and seven assists in the Premier League this season for the inconsistent Red Devils, who are also without top-scorer Bryan Mbeumo, on AFCON duty with Cameroon.

Fixtures:

Saturday (11 pm Beijing time unless stated)

Manchester United vs Newcastle (4 am); Nottingham Forest vs Manchester City (8:30 pm); Arsenal vs Brighton; Brentford vs Bournemouth; Burnley vs Everton; Liverpool vs Wolverhampton; West Ham vs Fulham.

Sunday

Chelsea vs Aston Villa (1:30 am); Sunderland vs Leeds (10 pm).

Monday

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham (12:30 am).

AFP