Still no Gyokeres as Arsenal dig out gritty victory.

A visit to Villa Park is always a banana skin waiting to trip us up…

Despite the enormous turnover in Emery’s playing staff and losing their first game of the season to Brighton 4-0 last weekend, we always knew that this could be a difficult assignment. Emery unsurprisingly had his players fully motivated for the visit of his ex-club and those lovely Villa Park fans traditionally have a deep historical loathing for the Gunners and that makes for a tinderbox atmosphere. We was greeted with a catchy little ditty from the Birmingham faithful as they belted out “Champions of Europe, you’ll never sing that” yes that’s an itch we need to scratch.

Given the thorough Brighton thrashing, the integration of a lot of new players and the antipathy that Emery has for the Arsenal, it was no surprise that he had his team set up in a deep low block, very much like many of the teams we played last season, so Villa began cautiously and kept us at arms length. Emery seemed to have a plan to make us play ‘their’ game and for long periods Arsenal struggled to replicate the smooth, enticing football that we had produced in beating Coventry last weekend. Passes were over hit, phases of the game broke down because of misplaced passes and loose control which all bled into a very stodgy first half. I guess Villa were heavily aware of how Arsenal had scored early goals against both Manchester City and Coventry in their previous two games and they weren’t going to give us any opportunity to score an early goal against them and they succeeded.

It was strange defending the Villa Park North stand which is being rebuilt to turn the stadium into a 50,000+ capacity ground, the end reminded me of lockdown and football in empty stadiums.

Gabriel almost scored from an early corner as he rose above his marker to head powerfully at goal but the goalkeeper got a slight touch and deflected it for another corner which looked dangerous but was ultimately cleared and then flagged for offside. On 13 minutes Saka got the ball and dribbled into the box beating his opponent before shooting over the bar, then a minute later Havertz got in on goal but fired wide. He should’ve scored but he was flagged for offside anyway.

The game didn’t have a lot of quality in the attacking department and by the end, Aston Villa actually didn’t even manage an attempt on goal the only attempt they had that came close came following a foul which VAR probably would’ve disallowed if it had gone in.

On 42 minutes a self-inflicted loose throw in from Calafiori put Jackson through and free on goal where his hard cross/shot flashed across the front of Raya but there was nobody up in support and the ball went to safety. It was in essence a very very forgettable 45 minutes. Half-time 0-0

At half-time Arteta made a tactical change by taking off Tzolis and bringing on Eze, Tzolis had been a recipient of some quite physical challenges from Cash, physical challenges which the referee seemed to ignore and it kind of knocked him out of his stride and he became less effective towards the break. Arteta obviously wanted someone to attack the inside-left channel and pull Cash inside which Eze did reasonably effectively. With Eze it’s always a mixed bag but the good Eze is always very good and he had a couple of those moments.

On 59 minutes, the key moment of the match arrived. Mosquera threaded a beautiful pass through the lines to Eze who controlled the ball and quickly moved it on to Calafiori, the Italians cross flashed into the box and Saka cleverly darted in from behind his marker to sweep the ball home. It was an exquisite piece of football and quite out of keeping with the rest of the match, but I’ll settle for that.

Villa upped the offensive side and their crowd became increasingly desperate, screaming and baying at every opportunity, this ground can be immensely difficult to play in when the home crowd are in the mood and they were in the mood yesterday.

Arteta then made a couple of sensible substitutions on 71 minutes when he took off the ineffective Odegaard and the tiring Lewis Skelly. On came the fresh legs of Bruno and Merino, who both did a sterling job in settling down their teammates and blocking off the opponents. Eight minutes later Mosquera went down holding his leg, it seemed like it could be a slight hamstring but no worry as on came Villa old boy Ezri Konsa to a heartwarming reception. I’m being ironic…

Villa made plenty of changes and their new right-winger from Gremio in Brazil looked a dead ringer to me of the man they recently sold to Chelsea for £117m. He didn’t look a bad player either. Still no Gyokeres!

As the game drifted towards full time and the 8 minutes of added time, Arteta sensibly took off Rice and sent on Zubimendi. Maybe we should pinch ourselves because it wasn’t that long ago that our substitutes bench was full of young players with no future at the club and Raheem Sterling!

We played out added time and the home crowd lost their collective minds. 3 points, no shots on target conceded and a clean sheet. Raya was very very good again, he’s so good that we maybe take him a little bit for granted. Never mind, it’s the League cup in a couple of weeks time and Kepa will soon bring us down to earth again. Lord help us..

Still time for one more transfer?

We March On!

By Kev