Journalist Luke Hatfield is confident that Aston Villa can bounce back from their two recent defeats at Arsenal on Friday.

Dean Smith's side travel to the Emirates in the first Premier League game of this round of fixtures desperate to set the record straight after squandering a 2-0 lead in the latter stages against Wolves.

What's the latest news with Aston Villa?

Had Villa not collapsed late on in their Midlands derby with Wolves, they would have been sitting on 13 points from their opening eight games and in the top-half of the Premier League table.

But their woeful final 10 minutes means they're now 13th and only four points above 17th-place Leeds, who've only won once all season.

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That defeat means that Villa are five points worse off than this time last season and whilst they've already travelled to Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham, collecting just one point from Watford, Brentford and Wolves will frustrate Smith.

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Villa's fixture list doesn't get any kinder, though, with another difficult trip to Arsenal on Friday, where Smith's side will be hoping to avoid suffering three league defeats on the bounce for the first time since July 2020 when they were fighting relegation.

But Hatfield is confident that Villa will bounce back at the Emirates.

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What did Hatfield say?

He told GIVEMESPORT: "Hopefully they do that straight away, because they've had a good record against Arsenal in recent times and hopefully, they can put in a performance to continue that."

What is Villa's record against Arsenal?

Traditionally, Villa have struggled against the Gunners in the Premier League era and at one point actually went almost 10 years without beating the north Londoners.

However, since their promoted under Smith, their fortunes have changed against Arsenal, and they have every reason to be confident once again.

Not only did Villa claim a comfortable 3-0 victory on the last trip to the Emirates last November, but they've won their previous two home meetings with Mikel Arteta's men. In fact, they've only lost once to Arsenal since their promotion back to the top-flight and they needed two late goals to come away with a 3-2 win on that occasion, too.