Ok Villa fans, who fancies us to beat Arsenal then? writes Villa blogger Gregg Williams.

We return to the Emirates for the first time since Martin O’Neill’s first game in charge, and how far we’ve come as a team and a club.

The team that day was Sorenson, Hughes, Mellberg, Ridgewell, Samuel, McCann, Davis, Agbonlahor, Barry, Moore, Angel, with Laursen, Djemba-Djemba and Hendrie as substitutes.

Only five of those players are still at the club, and only four have featured at all for us this season.

Looking at that team tells me we have improved the quality in the squad immeasurably in the last 18 months.

The remarkable thing is that we drew that game, and although Arsenal have themselves improved a lot over the same period of time, we should be confident that we can win this time around.

This time last year we were coming off the back of a 2-0 defeat at Reading, which again shows how our fortunes had turned around.

We went on to lose only one game for the rest of the season, Arsenal at home.

I would be pretty happy with the same again, especially considering some of the away games we have yet to face.

I wouldn’t say I will be expecting us to beat Arsenal, Man Utd, Everton or Portsmouth, but with this team I am more confident than I have been for years that we will at least put up a fight in these games.

No longer are we the whipping boys, and no longer can those teams expect an easy ride when we come to their grounds.

The fact that we have plenty of pace on the break, and are a danger on set pieces, means that we don’t have to dominate possession to beat teams.

I think we should really go for it in this game, and try to rattle Arsenal from the start.

They were shell shocked last week, just look at the bizarre behaviour of William Gallas at the final whistle.

They will not be looking forward to facing Young, Carew, Gabby and Super Marlon that’s for sure.

I’d take a draw but deep down I really think we can go one better than last year.

Villa fans have your say below