The Arsenal player who holds the key to ending Aston Villa hoodoo
It feels a bit early in the campaign for a revenge mission but Arsenal will certainly head to Villa Park with fire in their bellies after twice being frustrated by Unai Emery’s side last season.
The Gunners lost five Premier League matches in 2023-24 and two of those were inflicted by Aston Villa, who won 1-0 at home in December and 2-0 at the Emirates in April. Unsurprisingly, they were the only club to do the double over Arsenal and the only team to not concede a goal against them either. Arsenal’s bogey team is clothed in claret and blue.
Considering Arsenal finished just two points behind Manchester City at the top of the table, those twin losses against the Villans were costly. The second was especially significant given the timing of it; Arsenal bounced back to win their final six fixtures but the damage had been done with City capitalising on that slip-up to pip their rivals to the title.
Mikel Arteta will have been stung by being tactically outmanoeuvred by his Spanish compatriot and Arsenal predecessor.
In the first meeting, Villa were content to let Arsenal have a 62 per cent share of the ball, sitting back and waiting for their opportunity to pounce. An early goal from John McGinn came from a swift break with Leon Bailey scampering down the right wing before pulling it back for the Scot to score.
In north London, Villa were in a low block to begin with, partly by design and partly to withstand incessant Arsenal pressure. The home side had 14 shots on Emi Martinez’s goal in the first-half alone.
However, they were noticeably more aggressive after the restart which caught Arsenal off guard. They controlled the second half, eventually scoring their goals in the 84th and 87th minutes: Bailey tapped into an empty net at the back post from a cross into the box, before Ollie Watkins dinked a shot over David Raya after breaking the offside trap.
Defensively, they found it difficult to cope with the speed of Villa’s transitions. With Watkins, Bailey and Morgan Rogers springing forward, Villa carry a huge threat when there’s space to sprint into. They scored 15 goals fewer than Arsenal throughout 2023-24 but matched them for counter-attacking goals with seven; only three other clubs in the division bettered that tally.
