Aston Villa host Fulham in the Premier League at Villa Park on Saturday night.
Both sides go into the match looking for a third consecutive league win, having bounced back from difficult starts to the season, and both were beaten in the EFL Cup fourth round in midweek, Villa losing 3-0 at Bournemouth and Fulham falling 1-0 at home to Crystal Palace. Emery’s Villa have climbed to ninth in the Premier League, two points behind fifth-placed Chelsea, after a 2-1 win over Manchester City last weekend, while Arbeloa’s Fulham have risen to within three points of the top six on the back of back-to-back 1-0 victories over Hull City and Coventry City.
Emery holds a striking record against Fulham, winning eight of his nine Premier League meetings with the Cottagers at an average of 2.67 points per game, a figure bettered among managers with five or more matches against Fulham only by Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino. Fulham, for their part, have won just one of their last seven meetings with Villa, though that solitary success came in the two sides’ most recent encounter, a 1-0 win at Craven Cottage in April.
Aston Villa vs Fulham – Match preview and team news
- Date: Saturday, 31 October 2026
- Kick-off: 20:00 GMT
- Venue: Villa Park
- Referee: Samuel Barrott
- Last meeting: Fulham 1-0 Aston Villa, 25 April 2026, Premier League
Team news
Aston Villa
Amadou Onana remains a long-term absentee with an ACL injury, and Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Matteo Ruggeri both still need further time to recover from hamstring and thigh problems respectively. There are no fresh doubts, and Emery is expected to field the same XI that started the win over Man City, with Nicolas Jackson, who has scored four goals in his last four league appearances, leading the line.
Fulham
Ryan Sessegnon will serve the final match of his three-game suspension, while David Affengruber and Emile Smith Rowe are expected to be available having missed the EFL Cup tie with unspecified issues. Affengruber is likely to return straight to the heart of the defence alongside Calvin Bassey.
Form
Aston Villa
Villa have been transformed by the turn of the season, winning eight of their last 10 matches in October and November across recent campaigns (D1 L1) compared with just two of their previous 12 in August and September (D5 L5), and that pattern has repeated this year with back-to-back wins over Newcastle and Man City before the midweek cup exit.
Fulham
Fulham have won just two of their 14 away league matches in the 2026 calendar year (D5 L7) and have lost seven successive visits to Villa Park, five of them in the Premier League, a run stretching back 12 years that they will be desperate to end.
Predicted lineups
Aston Villa possible starting XI (4-2-3-1): Suzuki; Cash, Lindelof, Torres, Maatsen; Kamara, Gomes; Alysson, Manzambi, McGinn; Jackson
Fulham possible starting XI (4-2-3-1): Leno; Castagne, Affengruber, Bassey, Robinson; Berge, Charles; Bobb, King, Iwobi; Garcia
How to watch Aston Villa vs Fulham?
The match will be broadcast live in the United Kingdom on Sky Sports.
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