We made it two wins from two on Saturday as we beat Aston Villa 2-0 to avenge last season's two defeats at the hands of the same opponents, and maintain our great away form in 2024.
It was a hard-fought three points, but what were the key reasons behind the win? Adrian Clarke has the answers:
Piercing Emery’s line
Villa dropped their back four and central midfield deeper than usual for this early season encounter; a tactic they used to good effect in last season’s 2-0 win at Emirates Stadium. Allowing us to come onto them with 60.7% of possession, Unai Emery’s aim was to protect their own box by clogging up space with nine of their 10 outfield players, before breaking at pace.
To get the better of them, Mikel Arteta’s men needed to be clinical and incisive when rare moments of space opened up – and pleasingly, that’s how we won the game. A pair of fantastic defence-splitting passes from Martin Odegaard and Gabriel got the Gunners to the byline, and from there we punished the home side.
In the lead-up to Leandro Trossard’s opener, Odegaard spotted a rare gap, and credit must go to Ben White for his intelligent dummy, and to Bukayo Saka for evading the physical attentions of left-back Lucas Digne to reach the ball before it went out of play.
As you can see below, Declan Rice’s high positioning helped to create a 2v1 around young right-back Kosta Nedeljkovic before we struck for the second time. It still required a precision lofted pass from Gabriel to drop the ball onto Trossard’s foot following his superbly timed run, and from the same move we worked the ball to Thomas Partey to score.
These two progressive passes sliced Villa open, and in a sign that we are a top side we made the most of each opportunity.
Saliba’s speed
Winning eight of his 13 duels, William Saliba delivered another formidable performance at centre-back. He was also our fastest player on the day, registering a top speed of 33.59km/hr, just ahead of Jurrien Timber on 33.48km/hr.
The Frenchman used that turn of speed to great effect on two occasions, thwarting dangerous Villa attacks. This interception was a magnificent piece of anticipation, at a time when the Gunners were at full stretch from a counter.
At 2-0 up there was no sense of Arsenal relaxing either, and this was typified by an extraordinary recovery sprint from Saliba to deny Jacob Ramsey a clear sight of goal. With at least 10 yards to make up, our brilliant central defender timed his challenge perfectly to deny Villa the chance of launching a comeback.
Leo made his mark
Scoring the crucial opening goal with his first touch after coming on as a substitute, Trossard served up a reminder of what an ice-cool finisher he is at Villa Park. The Belgian’s seventh touch was to flash the ball across the face of goal for Saka to latch onto, before setting up Partey for our second.
And his eighth touch of 13 was to flick the ball inside for a brilliant supporting run made by Declan Rice. His cutback teed up Odegaard for a golden opportunity to make it 3-0.
Trossard’s impact was immediate and remarkably efficient:
Trossard’s Chalkboard
Problem solving
Aston Villa’s success under Emery has been built around clever coaching, and just as they did last season his side gave us plenty to think about from a tactical perspective. The way the hosts held their shape when we built from the back made it very difficult to play through the lines.
This example shows Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers dropping onto Timber and Partey, with John McGinn and Leon Bailey blocking the passing lanes to Rice and Odegaard, who are also marked by Villa’s central midfielders.
There was no easy out-ball for our centre-backs, and once Villa sensed the right moment to press; they closed down those three players with a ferocious pack of claret shirts. From this press, Gabriel had no clear pass to make and was robbed of possession. Thankfully, Watkins missed a good chance to score.
Pleasingly, we did not make a similar mistake again, coping better with their compact shape the longer the match went on. The outstanding Rogers, operating as a No.10, also posed a series of problems with his running power down the centre of the pitch.
Finding a better way to handle those transitions will be a task moving forward, but in his personal duel with Partey it was our Ghanaian who came up with the most telling moment. On a rare occasion when Rogers did not track back (circled), our number 5 stepped forward with intelligence to curl home a fine finish unopposed.
game-changing save
Not all heroes wear capes, but on Saturday evening they did wear a bright yellow goalkeeper’s shirt! For the second match running, David Raya made an astounding reflex save to keep us in a position of strength at a key juncture. Opta have classified Ollie Watkins’ chance as a game-high 0.499xG but in reality, it was almost a gimme for the England international.
When you look at Raya’s body position when the Villa striker heads the ball towards goal from a rebound off the bar, the Spaniard is stranded on all fours, off balance, and has neither sole of his boots on the ground to spring off from:
Yet somehow, Raya managed to leap up from this near-impossible position in a split-second to push the effort away in jaw-dropping fashion:
All those hours of goalkeeping training where they practice making two saves in quick succession paid off for our number one, and for the team. In the context of this match, it was a hugely significant crossroads moment.
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