Villa’s Christmas charge: Can Emery’s men crash the Arsenal-City party?

Aston Villa are heading into the Christmas period like a runaway sleigh with ten successive victories in all competitions and with the Premier League’s top spot in their sights. The Midlands club’s 2-1 win over Manchester United, their seventh in a row in the league, left them three points behind leaders Arsenal and one behind Manchester City. They have bagged 33 points out of the last 36 available, and in Unai Emery have a manager who knows how to deliver silverware. Yet, according to the Premier League’s data analysts Opta, Villa have a 5.3 per cent chance of winning the English title for the first time since 1981, with...