EPL preview: Villa face Chelsea test as title race heats up

Aston Villa face a tough challenge at Chelsea on Saturday after muscling their way into the Premier League title race alongside Arsenal and Manchester City.

The Gunners, top of the tree at Christmas, host Brighton, while Pep Guardiola's in-form City travel to Nottingham Forest.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot is grappling with a striker crisis after Alexander Isak fractured his leg, while Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes also faces a spell on the sidelines.

AFP Sport looks at three talking points ahead of the festive action:

Rogers spearheads Villa charge

Unai Emery's third-placed Villa are still considered rank outsiders for the Premier League title even though they are just three points behind leaders Arsenal.

Villa's 2-1 home win against Manchester United was their 10th consecutive victory in all competitions -- the first time they have achieved the feat as a top-flight team since 1914.

One of the major reasons for their recent success is the form of England midfielder Morgan Rogers, who failed to register a single goal involvement in his first seven matches in all competitions.

Now it is a different story: he has recorded 11 goal involvements in his past 15 appearances and the quality of his goals has been striking.

Rogers' seven Premier League goals this season have come from just 2.86 expected goals -- a metric used to determine how likely a player is to convert a chance.

But football analysts Opta give Villa just a five percent chance of becoming English champions for the first time since 1981.

Emery's men have an opportunity to silence the doubters when they take on fourth-placed Chelsea, with a match at Arsenal to follow just days later.

Slot's goals headache

In the early weeks of the season, Arne Slot would probably have envisaged Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak as two of his first-choice attackers.

Now the Liverpool boss has neither -- Salah is with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations, while Isak faces at least two months on the sidelines after fracturing his leg against Tottenham.

Slot has steadied the ship at Anfield after a shocking run of six defeats in seven Premier League matches that left Liverpool's title defence in tatters.

A run of three wins and two draws in five league games has lifted the reigning champions into fifth spot, but there will be concerns over where the goals are going to come from ahead of the visit of bottom club Wolves.

Isak's absence will heap more pressure on the shoulders of top-scorer Hugo Ekitike.

The summer signing has netted eight times in the Premier League -- twice the tallies of Salah and Cody Gakpo.

Fernandes blow for Man Utd

Bruno Fernandes has been a shining light and virtually ever-present during Manchester United's recent lean years.

But manager Ruben Amorim is going to have to plan for a period without his talisman after the Portugal midfielder pulled up with an apparent hamstring injury in United's 2-1 defeat at Villa Park.

While the prognosis is unclear, Amorim has already ruled Fernandes out of United's clash against Newcastle at Old Trafford on Friday, among a list of absentees, with the Portuguese boss urging the rest of his squad to "step up" in the absence of his "impossible to replace" captain.  

"It's massive," defender Diogo Dalot told Sky Sports. "We don't know how bad it is but for him to come off (in) the game, we know how tough he is."

Playmaker Fernandes has five goals and seven assists in the Premier League this season for inconsistent United, who are also without top-scorer Bryan Mbeumo, on Africa Cup of Nations duty with Cameroon.

Fixtures

Friday

• Manchester United vs. Newcastle

Saturday

• Nottingham Forest vs. Manchester City
• Arsenal vs. Brighton
• Brentford vs. Bournemouth
• Burnley vs. Everton
• Liverpool vs. Wolves
• West Ham vs. Fulham
• Chelsea vs. Aston Villa

Sunday

• Sunderland vs. Leeds
• Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham