Arsenal travel to Villa Park on Saturday evening to play an Aston Villa side who are on a run of form that has seen them climb up to third in the Premier League.
Mikel Arteta's league leaders have a five-point cushion between them and second-placed Manchester City, but head into a crucial phase of the season now. With the games coming thick and fast over the festive period in December, Arsenal can ill afford to lose any momentum in their quest for a first Premier League title since 2004.
On Wednesday, Arsenal beat Brentford 2-0 at home, with Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka on the scoresheet, while Villa had an eventful game against Brighton at the Amex Stadium.
They went 2-0 down, then Ollie Watkins scored twice, before Amadou Onana and Donyell Malen put them up 4-2. They conceded another in a tense final few minutes of the game but eventually held on to win 4-3.
So how do they stack up against each other?
Here are the main talking points ahead of Saturday's match.
Arsenal's injury crisis
Gabriel Magalhães, William Saliba, and Kai Havertz were joined on Arsenal's injury list by Cristian Mosquera and Declan Rice, who both had to come off the pitch against Brentford due to injuries.
As good as Arsenal's summer transfer business was, Rice is the kind of player who is irreplaceable, and that means Arteta faces a nervous wait to find out the extent of damage he's suffered.
If Rice doesn't make it on Saturday, how does Arteta shuffle his pack? Can he fit Martin Odegaard and Eberechi Eze in the same midfield alongside Martín Zubimendi? Does Merino come back into midfield, with Viktor Gyökeres taking his place up front?
Aston Villa the most in-form team
Villa's rise to third has come on the back of a run that saw them win eight of their last nine league matches. It's quite incredible where they are now, if you consider that they scored just one goal and took only three points from their opening five league games this season.
What changed? Well, Villa mastered the art of doing just enough to win games.
In recent weeks, the 4-0 win against Bournemouth aside, it can be argued that Villa haven't been the superior team in any of their games. There have been issues across the pitch, but Unai Emery has repeatedly mentioned his team's resilience, and their ability to grind out results by staying in games by injecting a moment or two of serious quality.
Last weekend against Wolves, for example, Villa looked laboured and largely unimpressive for most of the game, but a stunning Boubacar Kamara goal from long range in the second half proved to be enough. Against Brighton, they started poorly, but the quality they had up top eventually proved to be too much for their hosts on the day to handle.
But will just those moments prove to be enough against an Arsenal team that have clearly looked like Europe's best team this season?
Should Mikel Merino remain Arsenal's No. 9?
Mikel Merino is Arsenal's top scorer in the calendar year 2025, with 13 goals. It's quite the feat for the midfielder cosplaying as forward, who has looked a natural in this role he has had to take up due to Arsenal's injury woes.
After the game against Brentford, where he opened the scoring, Arteta singled Merino out for praise, saying that he has ensured Arsenal could ease Gyokeres in, amidst injuries to Havertz and Gabriel Jesus.
Merino has always had the eye for goals, making late dashing runs from midfield, and his weapon of choice from the centre-forward role hasn't been much different.
He has played more like a false nine, dropping into midfield, and bringing the wingers into play, but his instinct -- particularly for headers in the box -- has been key for Arsenal.
This season, he has a 0.91 goals vs xG ratio (non-penalty), considerably better than Gyokeres' -0.77, and has the best shot-to-goal conversion rate in the team (25%).
Is there a case to be made for giving him an extended run in this role?
Can Emery stop Arsenal again?
In each of the last three seasons, Arsenal have been able to point to results against Aston Villa that have halted their hopes of winning the Premier League. Before that, they had been knocked out of the Europa League by Unai Emery's Villarreal.
The former Arsenal coach clearly does have a liking for games against his former side. Since he was sacked by Arsenal in 2019, to eventually be replaced by Arteta, Emery has come up against Arsenal nine times and has only lost two of those games. He has won three, drawing the other four.
Emery's pragmatism coupled with his big-game nous have often proven Arteta's undoing and this could be one of those fixtures that everyone looks back at after season ends as the difference maker.
For if this weekend proves to be another such disappointment for Arsenal, Manchester City would be licking their lips at the prospect of another tight title race.
Villa's tactical approach
If Villa are to get anything out of the game, they will likely have to be spot on tactically. They cannot go gung-ho; Arsenal have shown against the likes of Bayern Munich that they are devastating on the counterattack. However, be too passive, and Arsenal's ability to hurt an opposition with their controlled possession will come to the fore. Emery will have to find a balancing act.
There have been a couple of big games this season where he has got things wrong, such as the game against Anfield, where Emery set his team up poorly, allowing Villa to get picked off by the Liverpool press, and refusing to go long despite Arne Slot's team showing glaring weaknesses against the long ball over the top and behind the defence.
Arsenal are Villa's first "big six" opponent since that Anfield aberration, and a positive result against them could prove a real marker of Villa's progress this season.