Matt Maher reflects on Unai Emery's pre-Arsenal press conference
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00:00Good afternoon from Boddymore Heath where Unai Emery has just conducted his pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday's visit of Arsenal, the first home game this season at Villa Park and what a fixture to kick off the new campaign in B6.
00:18Arsenal runners-up in each of the last two Premier League seasons and many people's tip to win the title this year. Villa, one of only two teams to take points off them in the Premier League since the turn of the year.
00:32In fact they are the only team to have beaten Arsenal in the Premier League, that 2-0 win at the Emirates back in April. For my money still the best result Villa have had under Unai Emery and probably the result that, well mathematically it was the result that denied Arsenal the title, albeit as part of a 38 game season.
00:55Unai Emery very clear that Arsenal are the favourites tomorrow, he must have said that about three or four times. He's never one for not playing down Villa's chances, particularly against Arsenal and Man City.
01:13In terms of injury news, no fresh concerns for Villa, Unai Emery reiterating his hope that Boubacar Kamara could be back in training as early as next month, what would be seven months on from when he suffered a serious knee injury.
01:32What wasn't talked about really was transfers, one brief comment from Unai Emery that was quite interesting, he basically said that Villa had done their most important work in the window. Of course a lot of talk in the last 12 hours about Raheem Sterling, Unai Emery didn't comment on that, in fact he wasn't asked about it.
01:53Sterling to Villa seems a bit of a long shot, one of the big reasons is the fact that he's on £325,000 a week which is way over Villa's salary budget. Things could still change in the next week, the onus is on Chelsea to get Sterling out but at the minute you'd say that's a deal that's probably not going to happen.