BAD OLD Arsenal BOLD NEW Villans
Watkins quickest on draw to expose soft under-belly of Arteta’s revolution
Aston Villa Arsenal Watkins 2
THE trouble with good old Arsenal is that bad old Arsenal keep showing up at inconvenient moments. Like 70 seconds i nto t he game when Cedric Soares underhits a pass.
At times, you can see exactly where Mikel Arteta is heading with this young team. They can be incisive and speedy, they move the ball well and, with Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka, they have a backbone in midfield they once lacked.
They pass the ball neatly: 60 per cent possession in this game, which means they ‘dominated,’ according to Arteta. They play with a degree of verve on the counter and create chances, though it would perhaps be even better if they could actually finish them.
For all that, their alter ego, lackadaisical Arsenal, the team who switch off and gift their opponents a goal after 76 seconds, keep showing up.
And that makes it rather hard to take them seriously as the type of side who could challenge for the top four. ‘Those teams don’t make those mistakes,’ said Arteta, who i ntimated that this was happening far too often. ‘With a top-four side,’ he continued, ‘it doesn’t happen.
‘Still, you make an error, you concede a goal early, the team has to react. And the team reacted. And we have done more than enough to win the game. So if you don’t do one, you have to do the other. And we had the chances.’
They did, though not as many as Arteta implied. And a committed and impressive Aston Villa inflicted another defeat to follow the loss at Wolves, setbacks which have now undone a fair chunk of the progress that has been made since their revival began on Boxing Day.
Just one minute into this game and bad old Arsenal reared its ugly head. Initially Gabriel did well to cut out the pass intended for Ollie Watkins. Yet the pass of Soares, who attempted to play the ball back to his team- mate, was woefully short, allowing Bertrand Traore to rob possession. Among the cardinal sins of modern football, conceding possession in front of your own goal remains the most grievous.
Traore duly darted past Gabriel, left off balance by his team-mate’s mistake, and crossed for Watkins. The Villa striker has that lovely tendency to drift away from his marker. He did so here, to gain a vital metre of space. His shot took a deflection off Rob Holding and that fooled Mat Ryan. Poor Ryan. His Arsenal debut and his first touch was to pick the ball out of the back of the net.
Post-match, much of the heat and light converged around the referee and VAR, Chris Kavanagh and David Coote. Arteta was upset that Ezri Konsa wasn’t sent off when he hauled auled down Bukayo Saka in the first half, arguing it was a goalscoring chance. That seemed optimistic on his behalf, with Saka far out from goal and Villa players covering. Dean Smith would point out that Konsa had been fouled first anyway. Arteta might have had more cause to complain about the steady stream of fouls committed in rotation by Villa on Saka. And he did have a case for the second-half penalty claim, when Emi Martinez grabbed Alexandre Lacazette’s shirt. Kavanagh waved it away and Coote didn’t
think that was a clea clear error. Questionable though that may have been, it didn’t explain Arsenal’s defeat. Nor, to his credit, did Arteta attribute blame to that.
What may be more significant was the moment on 84 minutes when Saka cut the ball back to substitute Martin Odegaard, on loan from Real Madrid. Ten yards out with clear sight of goal, he snatched at the chance and sent it over. I t would have been an emphatic way to announce his arrival; instead it was Arsenal’s best chance wasted.
Had it fallen to Watkins, you would have felt more confident. The step up from Championship to Premier League is significant for any player but perhaps toughest for a centre forward.
Yet few hold the ball up, work the line and support their team as well as the former Exeter City and Brentford man. He now has 10 goals in 21 games since his move and four in the last five. ‘Every
week we are speaking well of his performance,’ said boss Smith. ‘He is selfless in terms of his workrate, such a good footballer and a good team-mate as well. It is no surprise that he has got into double figures.
‘ Having worked with him [ at Brentford in 2018] and because of the way Brentford go about their business in terms of coaching, I knew he was ready.’
And when Watkins holds the ball up, i nvariably t here i s Ross Barkley, Jack Grealish and Traore sprinting in to link up play. Outside of the big six, there aren’t many teams with more creative forces. Villa’s back four were solid too while John McGinn and Marvelous Nakamba were tireless in midfield. And Martinez’s one-handed save, diving high t o his l eft, f rom Xhaka’s free-kick was stunning.
Villa have now equalled l ast season’s points tally after just 21 games and, as such, are heading for Europa League places. No one is sure where Arsenal are heading.
ASTON VILLA (4-2-3-1): Martinez 8; Cash 7, Konsa 7, Mings 7, Targett 7; McGinn 7.5, Nakamba 7.5; Traore 8 (Trezeguet 66min, 6.5), Barkley 7.5 (Ramsey 78), Grealish 7; Watkins 7.5. Booked: Konsa, Nakamba, Grealish. Subs (not used): Heaton, Luiz, El Ghazi, Engels, Sanson, El Mohamady, Davis.
ARSENAL (4-2-3-1): Ryan 7; Bellerin 6,5, Gabriel 6, Holding 6, Soares 5; Partey 7, Xhaka 7; Pepe 6.5, Smith Rowe 6.5, Saka 8; Lacazette 6 (Aubameyang 59, 6). Booked: Partey, Xhaka. Subs (not
used): Runarsson, Ceballos, Odegaard, Willian, Chambers, Mari, Elneny, Martinelli. Referee: C Kavanagh (Lancashire) 6.5.