Villa 2 – 1 Arsenal; Stonking win!

Well, I can hardly let that go by without commenting, can I?

What to say?
We played well and never stopped working probably sums things up, but I think it was the way we approached things in midfield that won this for us.
Unai Emery had obviously done loads of pre-work for this game. He quite rightly to my mind, dropped Guessand for Tielemans and swapped out Maatsen for Digne, which surprised me, as I thought Digne would be the better bet against an ever lively and tricky Bacary Saka. It says it all when I thought Saka never really got as involved as I would have expected. Likewise, Matty Cash on the other side was also very good and looked like he had run himself into the ground before he went off.
Given that I don’t normally rate either player, I think it should be taken that that’s a massive compliment on my part.

Back to the midfield and to a man, I thought they were great. They worked with tenacity and never gave Arsenal a chance with the way they hunted the Gunners down and teamed up against them.
Mind, you, you could say the same about their mids too, in fairness and you could say that there wasn’t much of a gap in it. Even Ally McCoist agreed with me in saying that Villa edged the first half.
And then there was the defence, where Pau really seems to be coming into his own. It has to be asked if we’ve missed Mings and simply, we haven’t in my opinion. Not in the slightest.

So we went into half time one up and as I said, I thought we were worth it.

The second half was different. At least at first, as we never got going at all and a goal against looked to be imminently incoming. And so it was, where Emi Martinez, who otherwise proved to be very competent today was beaten by Trossard, who had been subbed on by Arteta. to make it 1-1. You could just see it coming.

We didn’t let our heads drop though and the game continued with the same, mostly frantic pace.
Two top quality teams, both in very good form and it was intriguing as to which way things were going to go, albeit nail-biting at the same time.
Subs aplenty were made on both sides, mostly to relieve tired legs, because nobody had played badly.
And while we had a great chance, with a ball played straight across the face their goal, there was noone availble for the tap in. They also had a similar chance, but again, it wasn’t to be.
And then, as things looked to be drawing to a not unfair 1-1 result on either side, I think it was Sancho who crossed in from the left to lead to a bit of skittles in the box. The outcome was Emi Buendia, who himself had only been put on as a last throw of the dice in the 85th minute, was on the floor, got up sharply and beautifully hit a rising shot that beat two defenders and the goalie.

The crowd erupted and then shortly after, the whistle blew to make it another great victory. 2-1 to the Villa!

What a great game and coming so closely after the Brighton comeback, what a great week it’s been.

I think the comms said we have won nine of the last ten games. Something we haven’t done in a HUNDRED years!
We really are setting records under Emery. I feel embarrased at the moment for ever doubting him, albeit never calling for his head.

We’ve beaten City and now Arsenal, which begs the question: Are we title challengers?
I said in the previous thread that I’m a pragmatic/scientific type thinker. And that tells me that without a doubt we are.
I pretty much expect a not so good rest of this month, as we still have some very tough games, but this is one we could easily have lost on paper and even if we do, it might prove to be our poor run. All teams get them, although you could say we had ours at the beginning of the season, but whatever, a poor December run might prove to be good timing if it leaves us going well for the rest of the season.
A title push would be great, but for me the aim is the Champions League and back with the big boys.

I’ve got a smile on my face.

UTV!