Next Saturday, 20th September 2014, Arsenal will travel to Birmingham to go head-to-head with Aston Villa at the beautiful Villa Park for the fifth round of the English Premier League.

After defeating Crystal Palace on day 1 of the tournament, the Gunners have not yet managed to win another league match. Three consecutive draws, two of them away from home, was the best Arsene Wenger's boys managed to do and after only four matches played, they are already six points behind Chelsea, who is comfortably sitting at the top of the table.

Last Tuesday’s night, Arsenal's motivation levels suffered another yet major blow as they were completely ran over during their visit to Westfalenstadion. The Gunners were completely controlled by Borussia Dortmund and they never seemed able to take something positive out of that match, with the exception of Danny Welbeck’s isolated effort.

Next Saturday, Arsenal will have to measure forces with a fairly competitive team that caused a major upset to Liverpool last weekend and that currently occupies the second place of the table, right behind José Mourinho’s Chelsea. As for the Gunners, although the team put up a quality performance against Manchester City last weekend, they have failed miserably against Dortmund on Tuesday and proved they are not a very different team from what they were last season.

For the match against the Villans, Arsene Wenger will still not be able to count on the contribution of Giroud, Debuchy, Sanogo, Monreal, Gnabry and Walcott, all of them sidelined due to injury.

As for Aston Villa, the Birmingham team is currently enjoying a fairly positive moment at the English Premier League. The Villans are yet to be defeated after four matches have been played and so far they have the best defence line of the tournament with only one goal conceded. Although Aston Villa have been eliminated from the Capital One Cup by the hands of the modest Leyton Orient, they did manage to bounce back and return to wins only four days later against Hull.

Paul Lambert has been continuing with the good work he started in 2012 and this season, with the help of former Manchester United's star Roy Keane, the Villans will probably leave a very good image of themselves during the competition.

When both sides met at Villa Park last term, the visitors won 2-1 thanks to goals by Wilshere and Giroud. Next Saturday, however, things might be different, as the home side looks fairly more confident than what they were last season.

Aston Villa

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-1

Recent Form - WWLDW

Arsenal

Stats: W-1 L-1 D-3

Recent Form - LDDWD

Possible Line-ups

Aston Villa (4-3-3) – Guzan - Hutton - Cissokho - Senderos - Baker - Westwood - Cleverley - Delph - Richardson - Weimann - Agbonlahor

Arsenal (4-2-3-1) – Szczesny - Bellerin - Mertesacker - Koscielny - Monreal - Arteta - Ramsey - Ozil - Wilshere - Sánchez - Welbeck

Prediction

Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 1