国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Sports
Home / Sports / Soccer

Villa faces Chelsea test as Premier League title race heats up

Updated: 2025-12-26 10:33
Share
Share - WeChat
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery reacts during an English Premier League match against Manchester United at Villa Park on Sunday. Reuters

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

Most Popular

Highlights

What's Hot
Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1994 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
乐清市| 南陵县| 平遥县| 时尚| 沐川县| 信阳市| 房山区| 布拖县| 盖州市| 临洮县| 洞头县| 仪陇县| 哈尔滨市| 丹凤县| 射阳县| 佛坪县| 德惠市| 淮阳县| 延安市| 左云县| 黄山市| 富源县| 汤原县| 孟津县| 美姑县| 和静县| 彩票| 黄山市| 化州市| 施秉县| 嘉峪关市| 和林格尔县| 兴安盟| 延吉市| 定远县| 寿宁县| 德安县| 光泽县| 濉溪县| 南汇区| 北票市|