Arsenal extended their unbeaten Premier League run on Friday night with an impressive victory against Aston Villa.
The Gunners eased past the visitors 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium with a dominant showing.
Thomas Partey got the goalscoring up and running with his first goal for the club since last summer’s move from Atletico Madrid before Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang doubled the advantage in controversial fashion.
Seconds before half-time, the Gunners were awarded a penalty for a foul on Alexandre Lacazette - VAR intervening with the decision.
Aubameyang’s initial effort was saved before he tapped home the rebound.
Emile Smith Rowe fired in a third after half-time to all but seal the three points despite Jacob Ramsey pulling a consolation goal back for the visitors late on.
The victory moves the Gunners up to ninth in the Premier League table ahead of the rest of the weekend’s games.
football.london takes a look at how the national media saw Arsenal’s victory:
Take a look at what you could have won. During the summer Aston Villa felt sure enough of their station to make two bids for Emile Smith Rowe and, although they were rejected out of hand, it might have spoken volumes that a rival outside Europe’s elite fancied they could lure one of Arsenal’s star turns.
After facing him here, it is unlikely they would embarrass themselves with another go. Smith Rowe was physically and technically on another level to anything Dean Smith’s players could offer, scoring his team’s third goal after a lung-busting show of initiative and leading the way in their best all-round performance of the season.
While Smith Rowe rose high above his opponents, he was not alone. Arsenal were superior in every conceivable area: quicker, stronger, hungrier, brighter, more creative, better structured and, to make sure that all counted for something, more clinical. Jacob Ramsey’s late strike for Villa happened to be the best finish of the match but risked creating the false impression that, at one stage, this may have been a contest. It never was.
Arsenal delivered arguably their best performance of the Mikel Arteta era with this dominant, decisive victory. Aston Villa were blown away in an hour of shock-and-awe football.
Having lost their first three games of the season, Arsenal have taken 14 points from their past 18, and their summer business is beginning to look very good indeed. Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, Nuno Tavares and Albert Sambi Lokonga all excelled here, and in a 4-4-2 system with Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe on the wing, and Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front, Arteta may just have stumbled across the best template for Arsenal’s talent.
Thomas Partey had been waiting to score his first Arsenal goal, his willingness to try his luck from distance becoming harder to understand with every passing week and wayward long-range effort.
Meanwhile, Arsenal had also not enjoyed anywhere near enough occasions in the Premier League this season where they had taken a lead and built on it.
Both issues were rectified against Aston Villa and there will be no concern about exactly how.
As they say on the terraces, they were always going to have a party when Thomas Partey scored a goal. It had taken 40 matches and 49 shots for Arsenal’s star midfielder to find the net but when the moment finally arrived, it marked the start of a Friday night to remember for Mikel Arteta and the fans of this club.
Composure in midfield, control in defence and menace in attack: Arteta could not have asked for more from his players here, aside perhaps from a clean sheet.
The nature of Arsenal’s performance rubbished the notion that Aston Villa might be worthy of replacing them in the upper echelons of the English game, and it felt symbolic when the exceptional Emile Smith Rowe struck the third goal for the home side.
Villa had dared to make two bids for Smith Rowe this summer, both of which were laughed off by Arsenal, and the visitors could not get close to the 21-year-old on the pitch either.
This was another statement performance by the youngster, who is surely on the verge of an England call-up, and it came on the day he declared that he would love to stay at Arsenal “forever”.
