Right then, that’s all from me. Bye!
Arteta: 'We performed below our standards. We weren't a team.'
Some strong words from Mikel Arteta:
First of all congratulations to Aston Villa for the way they played and the victory. And after that, we performed below our standards and I have to say that since I’m the Arsenal manager the first time that I’ve seen us play and we weren’t a team. I take full responsibility. We didn’t start the game well enough. We got away with a decision on VAR because of the offside, but after that we lost all the races, all the duels, we were sloppy on the ball, and when we created chances to score we didn’t even hit the target, so it’s a really bad combination.
As the game went on and we started to be more open and chase the game more we left more spaces open, against a team that can do that to you, and on the counter-attack we looked really vulnerable. I take full responsibility because I’m responsible for making the team perform on the pitch. Today we haven’t shown it, and today we weren’t a team, so this is my job.
It takes a lot to build momentum, to start to create a certain way of being, of living, of performing. When something like [the international break] comes up it’s a hard one to take, but as well I always believe that at a bad moment you learn more than in positive moments, and now I want to see the reaction. How we react, to blame each other, or we look at ourselves in the mirror and when we come back we start to perform better and more consistently.
Jonathan Liew has delivered a brutal and entirely appropriate savaging of Arsenal:
The pivotal period of this game, you felt, came around an hour in. Arsenal were knocking at the door in search of an equaliser. Crosses came and went. Chances whistled past either post. For a while, it felt like Aston Villa might have to settle in for a long and painful rearguard action. At which point, they seemed to come to a crucial realisation: they were better than Arsenal. And so in a rampant, crushing climax, they set about proving it.
As Jack Grealish and Ross Barkley began to run the game on strings, as Ollie Watkins picked off the two goals that would turn a victory into a rout, Arsenal were stripped bare again and again, beaten not just on tactics and technique but on application. Marshalled by Tyrone Mings at the back, orchestrated by Douglas Luiz in midfield and brilliantly drilled by manager Dean Smith, Villa won their duels and won their second balls, leaving Arsenal choking in their dust.
Much more here:
The worst thing about Sky’s pay-per-view coverage is the cursory post-match section, which basically amounts to one brief player interview, no analysis, and then non-stop adverts on repeat.
Arsenal had two decent chances tonight, the first-half Lacazette header, which really should have gone in, and the Willian half-volley. Villa scored three, had one disallowed, another cleared off the line, and a few other presentable opportunities. In the end it really was a thrashing.
It's actually six hours and 26 minutes since Arsenal last scored a goal from open play in the Premier League.
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) November 8, 2020
Aston Villa have now conceded zero, one, two, three, four and five goals in their last six league games at Arsenal.
3 - Aston Villa are the third side in Premier League history to win each of their first three away games in a season without conceding a goal, after Chelsea in 2005-06 and Manchester City in 2015-16. Unfazed. pic.twitter.com/JgbLDQm8j4
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 8, 2020
Ollie Watkins, a boyhood Arsenal fan, says he is “buzzing” and also “over the moon”.
Most importantly we got the three points against a good side here. Unbelievable. We worked so hard. First half, from side to side. We know their game, they’re going to pass it and move it, we just had to cut off the lines into the midfield. I felt like we did that first half and second half it gave us the freedom to go and play.
We’ve conceded quite a few goals the last couple of games, but it’s how we bounce back, and we’ve done that tonight. I’m loving it. Obviously there may be a bit of pressure. I’ve just got to get my head down, work hard, and that’s what I’m trying to do. Get goals, and thankfully it’s happening. I think there’s a lot to come [from us]. I think we’re very exciting and we can beat anyone.
All three goals were excellent, but the second surely wins the goal of the night award.
Aston Villa are developing a habit of not just occasionally beating the division’s “big” teams, but absolutely humiliating them. This to my mind was a better and more convincing display than the 7-2 thrashing of Liverpool.
Final score: Arsenal 0-3 Aston Villa
90+4 mins: It’s all over! A superb display from Aston Villa has made Arsenal look completely hopeless!
90+3 mins: One last chance for Villa to make one last chance. Grealish runs with the ball from the left, Watkins makes a run into the area, but this time Grealish chooses not to pass, and instead runs straight into a defender.
90+2 mins: Then Barkley has a shot from the edge of the area, which Leno saves and holds at the second attempt.
90+2 mins: Grealish wins a free-kick on the right, and Barkley hits an excellent cross that looks destined to be headed in y El Ghazi, but then isn’t.
90+1 mins: There will be three minutes of second-half stoppage time.
89 mins: Arsenal win a free-kick on the right-hand corner of the penalty area. Pepe’s cross is headed clear.
88 mins: Trezeguet leaves the field, and Anwar El Ghazi enters it.
85 mins: Villa keep the ball for an age, their display tipping now towards mockery. “Arsenal pretty Spursy; Spurs pretty Arsenally,” suggests Gary Naylor.
82 mins: That there is one team flinging optimistic crosses into their opponents’ penalty area in the final minutes, while the other calmly knocks them away, is perhaps not a surprise. That it is Arsenal doing the crossing probably is. Villa have completely owned this game, and in the most entertaining way.
80 mins: Villa are pushing for a fourth. “Arsenal looked throughout the first half like a decent mid-table side,” writes Charles Antaki, “and have looked progressively like a less and less decent mid-table side, and are in danger of looking in the end like a non-decent non-mid-table side.”
79 mins: McGinn goes down under Elneny’s challenge, but the referee gives nothing so he gets up again.
78 mins: Barkley dances into the area, but his shot deflects over the bar. He and Grealish have both been fabulous tonight.
GOAL! Arsenal 0-3 Aston Villa (Watkins, 75 mins)
This is way too easy. Martinez catches a cross and throws out to Grealish, who runs 60 yards, holds off a clumsy Bellerin challenge and plays in Watkins, who tucks it through the keeper’s legs!
Updated
75 mins: Actually it was Ceballos on the line. Impressive back-tracking from the lad.
73 mins: Off the line! So nearly a third for Villa, after Watkins dummies Barkley’s pull-back, bamboozles the entire defence, and the ball runs through to Grealish, whose shot beats Leno but not Tierney on the line!
GOAL! Arsenal 0-2 Aston Villa (Watkins, 72 mins)
Another brilliant goal from the visitors! Douglas Luiz hits a fantastic pass, right to left, over the defence to Barkley, and he volleys an impeccable cross onto the head of Watkins, who heads in from two yards!
Updated
71 mins: Just occasional breaks at the moment for Villa, and they’ve just converted one into a corner.
Pepe now has the joint-most shots of any Arsenal player in the game
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) November 8, 2020
69 mins: Arsenal have dialled up the attacking now, going high-octane and indeed full-throttle. Pepe takes a curling, dipping shot from out on the right which goes just wide of the far post.
66 mins: Chance! A cross from Tierney is half-cleared and Elneny runs onto the loose ball and thunders in a shot which looks dangerous on first viewing, but turned out to be on its way well wide even before it hits Nketiah.
65 mins: Willian, who has been largely peripheral and otherwise poor, and Lacazette go off, while Pepe and Nketiah come on.
62 mins: Villa break, Watkins’ pass runs to Barkley, but he can’t find space and his shot is blocked.
61 mins: But now Arsenal have a chance, with two centre-backs at its heart! Gabriel’s pass into the area flicks off Konsa’s back and runs to Holding, but he shoots wide of the near post!
60 mins: Now Douglas Luiz passes to Watkins, who cuts onto his right foot but has a shot blocked. Villa are dangerously close to being rampant at the moment.
57 mins: Villa win a corner on the left, which is lifted over the throng in the middle of the area to Grealish beyond, whose volley seems corner-bound until it hits Tierney.
56 mins: Chance for Villa! Barkley passes to Grealish, bursting into the area. He turns inside Holding and shoots towards the far post, but it clips Leno’s shoulder and goes wide!
55 mins: As in the first half, Willian lays this back to Tierney, not very well. He controls and passes left to Ceballos, who curls a shot wide from 23 yards.
54 mins: Saka is pulled back by Trezeguet just outside the penalty area, keeps going, and eventually goes down in the area. The referee gives a free kick.
52 mins: Grealish finds Barkley, whose pirouette inside the penalty area demonstrates his confidence, if not his pirouetting skills. Arsenal get it back.
50 mins: Aubameyang’s cross from the right flicks off Douglas Luiz’s head and drops to Willian, who completely miscues another shot, this time with his left foot.
48 mins: Full marks here for Barkley, who pulls down the ball after a Grealish pass is intercepted and conjures an excellent blind pass to Trezeguet, whose shot from out to the right of goal is saved.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! The second half is under way, with no other changes.
Partey has stayed in the dressing-room, and is replaced by Ceballos.
I can tell you that Dani Ceballos is about to come on. I cannot yet tell you who is going off.
Lacazette really should have scored with that header, multiple replays confirm. There has, unusually, only been one shot on target in the first half, and it wasn’t taken by the team that leads 1-0.
Half time: Arsenal 0-1 Aston Villa
45+4 mins: And that’s all, for now. Arsenal haven’t been bad, but Aston Villa, forgiving a temporary dip after the disallowed goal, have been excellent.
45+1 mins: There will be an evidently insufficient three minutes of first-half stoppage time.
44 mins: McGinn runs from deep towards the penalty area, slips, falls over, stands up, keeps going and passes to Barkley, whose shot is blocked.
Updated
41 mins: Chance! An excellent cross from deep from Tierney dips onto Lacazette’s head, on the six-yard line, but he heads over!
39 mins: Martinez gets fingertips to Saka’s driven cross to take it away from Lacazette’s head, and all Arsenal can create in the end is a poor shooting chance for Partey, who takes a poor shot.
37 mins: This game is rather good now, with both teams attacking with intent and quality. Arsenal get numbers forward now, but Bellerin’s pull-back is cut out.
34 mins: A fantastic long pass over the defence from McGinn to Grealish, but Gabriel gets across in time to block his shot.
30 mins: Aubameyang plays in the overlapping Tierney, and his vicious low cross would have been highly dangerous had Konsa not preemptively laid down in what turned out to be its path.
27 mins: I had just decided they were overcomplicating things and wasting everyone’s time when Grealish tapped inside to Barkley, his pass slashed through the defence like a sabre, and Targett played the perfect low cross. It was a curious build-up, but given its conclusion a pretty brilliant one. I see Bukayo Saka has now been credited with an own goal, as he tried to stop Trezeguet.
26 mins: The build-up to that goal was, frankly, fantabulous.
GOAL! Arsenal 0-1 Aston Villa (Trezeguet, 25 mins)
Barkley, Grealish and Targett play the ball around on the left, teasing any defender who attempts to close them down, playing it among themselves with a variety of backheels and flicks, before finally Barkley’s reverse pass finds Targett ghosting beyond the backline, and his low cross-shot is turned in at the far post!
Updated
22 mins: Aubameyang wins a free-kick on the left, and it takes an age for the teams to set themselves up for it. Eventually Willian rolls it to Tierney, lurking outside the penalty area, but the pass is a bit behind him and the shot is poor.
Updated
18 mins: Decent play from Arsenal to work space for Saka on the left, but his cross goes straight out of play.
16 mins: Villa may well have had their finest attacking moment within 55 seconds of kick-off. Arsenal have certainly had the better of the last quarter-hour or so, though with only that Willian chance to show for it.
13 mins: Chance! Partey’s pass sends Aubameyang down the left, and he picks out Willian with an excellent cross, but the Brazilian half-volleys wildly, high enough to clear half a dozen goals and a bit wide to boot.
10 mins: Close! McGinn plays a very gentle backpass and Partey gets to it a fraction before Martinez, but hits the keeper with his shot.
7 mins: It’ll be interesting to see how much stoppage time we get at the end of the half, given that four of the first five minutes was pure stoppage.
Aston Villa had the ball in the net but it was ruled out for this offside ⛔#ARSAVL pic.twitter.com/cvz6lpMMcL
— Goal (@goal) November 8, 2020
No goal!
5 mins: That will be hard for Villa to take, but I do think that Barkley was probably directly blocking Leno’s view of the ball. Not that he’d have had the slightest chance of getting to it, so clean and powerful was McGinn’s shot, but there you go.
Updated
5 mins: The referee is having to look at a small supplementary non-malfunctioning screen inside a suitcase.
5 mins: His screen doesn’t seem to be working, though.
4 mins: Martin Atkinson is going to look at this. Barkley was offside, it’s just a question of whether he was interfering with play.
3 mins: Ah, but was Barkley offside (yes) and in Leno’s line of vision (perhaps) as McGinn took his shot?
3 mins: Restart is being delayed while VAR checks something. There wasn’t a hint of offside about it, and nerry a sniff of handball.
GOAL! Arsenal 0-1 Aston Villa (McGinn, 1 min)
Villa take the lead before Arsenal touch the ball! Targett’s pass finds Grealish on the left, and he passes back to McGinn, arriving at the edge of the area, who takes one touch before blasting past Leno and into the roof of the net!
Updated
1 min: Peeeeeep! Aston Villa, clad all in black, get the game started.
The players are out, and currently watching a video of someone playing the Last Post.
It is raining hard in north London (or at least in Arsenal’s part of north London - mine, just a few miles away, is completely dry) as the players gather in the tunnel.
Whoever Aston Villa’s ball-liner-upper is, he’s doing a great job.
That’s a total of one change, with Trezeguet replacing Traore for Aston Villa, and Arsenal sticking with the side that beat Manchester United last week.
The teams!
Team sheets are in, and the big names today are these ones:
Arsenal: Leno, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney, Bellerin, Thomas, Elneny, Saka, Willian, Lacazette, Aubameyang. Subs: Ceballos, Runarsson, Maitland-Niles, Pepe, Luiz, Nketiah, Xhaka.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Targett, McGinn, Douglas Luiz, Trezeguet, Barkley, Grealish, Watkins. Subs: Taylor, Steer, Hourihane, Nakamba, El Ghazi, Elmohamady, Davis.
Referee: Martin Atkinson.
🚨 The team news is in...
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) November 8, 2020
And we're unchanged from Old Trafford 👊#ARSAVL
⚫ 𝗧 𝗘 𝗔 𝗠 𝗡 𝗘 𝗪 𝗦 ⚫
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) November 8, 2020
Here is your Aston Villa team to face Arsenal tonight! 👊#ARSAVL pic.twitter.com/dPnxS1adWH
Hello world!
In the build-up to this game, Mikel Arteta was asked whether his side were starting to show their full attacking potential, after putting four past Molde (though it’s best not to get carried away: they have scored only once in their last three league games and three times in their last five, and no top-flight team has had fewer than their 60 shots so far this season). “You could see last night that we were much more fluent in attack. We scored the goals and we had more opportunities,” he said. “It is something that we have been working on in the last two weeks.”
Two weeks? Two weeks? He was appointed 11 months ago, and he’s been working on attacking fluency in the last two weeks? Well, better late than never I suppose. And his timing is good, as having played both Manchester clubs plus Liverpool and Leicester in their last five league games their upcoming fixtures, with the obvious exception of the visit to Tottenham on 5 December, should prove a little less testing.
Villa however are the only team not to concede an away goal yet, and Emi Martínez, returning to his former club, has only had to field eight shots on target away from Villa Park, the lowest total in the league*. Interesting statistical titbit: in their last five league visits to the Emirates Aston Villa have conceded one, two, three, four and five goals, so today they should either let in none or six. The last time they conceded no goals at all here was in 2008.
Point of useless information: of the four Premier League matches played today this is the third to be between teams that are next to each other when the league is ordered alphabetically. This seems curious. Plus there was Friday’s goalless draw between Brighton and Burnley.
Anyway, hi! Welcome. Make yourselves at home.
* These statistics are superficially impressive but actually pretty much meaningless, given that they have only played two away games when almost every other side has played four. And one of the two was at Fulham.
