How do you top reducing the kings to pawns? It was a question on the lips of the Aston Villa supporters basking in these rather heady days and a conundrum for Unai Emery, their manager who is growing more untouchable by the week, to solve.
The simple answer is a club-record 15th straight home league victory, one which came against the erstwhile leaders, Arsenal, nonetheless. John McGinn’s early strike was sufficient to move Villa – who survived a late VAR check when Arsenal had a goal ruled out for handball against Kai Havertz – to within two points of the summit and one behind Arsenal. Perhaps Villa really are bona fide title contenders, as Pep Guardiola suggested in midweek.
For the second time in four days, Villa Park played host to a mouthwatering contest. After Villa’s evisceration of the champions, Manchester City, on Wednesday, it was impossible not to wonder whether they would have the might – mentally as well as physically – to perform again at full tilt.
They inevitably faded but the answer was resounding and one that became obvious within seven minutes, at which point Villa seized the lead through their captain. McGinn put the cherry on the cake of a slick team move. In five passes, Villa went from halfway to rippling the back of David Raya’s net. Leon Bailey destroyed Gabriel Magalhães and Oleksandr Zinchenko, the only change made across both starting lineups, and then had the poise to locate McGinn lurking on the edge of the six-yard box. McGinn controlled the ball on his right foot with his back to goal and promptly swivelled clear of Ben White and buried the ball past Raya with his left, his next touch.
As the Villa faithful serenaded “Super John McGinn”, Mikel Arteta looked on stony-faced from the directors’ box. Arteta, serving a touchline ban, sat along from Edu, the sporting director, next to Miguel Molina, his tactical assistant coach, and in front of Vinai Venkatesham, Arsenal’s chief executive officer who is departing at the end of the season. Arteta’s annoyance would be understandable at the best of times but perhaps a few numbers entered his thinking; Villa have now not lost any of the past 21 games in which they opened the scoring, winning the past 10 in a row. Arteta may have been absent but Emery, whom Arteta replaced after his fellow Basque’s unhappy and sapping 18-month spell, was choreographing another compelling, voracious Villa display.
Villa had to show different faces here and dug deep to fend off swells of Arsenal pressure. The outlook was ominous, then, for Arsenal but, unlike City in midweek, they put Emiliano Martínez’s goal under sustained pressure. Martínez, the former Arsenal goalkeeper who in October won the Yashin Trophy at the Ballon d’Or awards, saved smartly from Gabriel Jesus and Martin Ødegaard before the break. Ødegaard should have done better, too. Havertz made inroads down the left and he expertly the cut ball back for Jesus, whose effortless first touch on the penalty spot perfectly laid the ball on a plate for Ødegaard. But the Arsenal captain, who earlier skittled a shot against the side netting, could not get enough conviction on his strike and his shot was also too close to the Villa goalkeeper.
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Arsenal arrived on to the pitch a couple of minutes early for the second half, for which Moussa Diaby entered for Villa, replacing the injured Bailey. Arsenal had won six games on the bounce and had no desire to go under here. Their response was impressive and they fashioned several chances. For Villa, this was a breathless encounter of another kind. They had to activate survival mode on a few occasions.
Ødegaard side-footed a first-time effort wide after Havertz drove into space in the left channel and Bukayo Saka, given his Arsenal debut by Emery five years ago, had a goal disallowed for offside. Villa almost gifted Arsenal an equaliser when Martínez’s pawed clearance from a Saka corner bounced off Ollie Watkins and against a post. Early in the second half Lucas Digne resorted to clinging on to the coattail of Saka’s yellow shirt, earning himself a routine yellow card.
An invariable touch of controversy came in the 90th minute. Arteta could only agonise in the stand as the VAR Michael Salisbury reviewed the referee Jarred Gillett’s decision to disallow the substitute Eddie Nketiah’s strike, after Havertz was penalised for handball under pressure from Matty Cash. Arsenal, to their credit, did not relent but Villa held on to record another magnificent victory.
The last time Villa lost here in the league was against Arsenal in mid-February. A 4-2 defeat, in which they conceded two stoppage-time goals, left Villa in mid-table, relegation still a distinct, albeit unlikely, prospect. This season they are mixing it in a different stratosphere, the possibilities very much endless.
