Arsenal may not have won by a major scoreline against Aston Villa this afternoon, but it was a relatively easy victory in all fairness.
Our team started as they meant to go on, pressing from the off and immediately putting our rivals under pressure both on and off the ball.
We nearly managed to open the scoring relatively early one, when Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard combined down the right to break into the box before trying to lay it off to Aleandre Lacazette near the penalty spot, but the Frenchman and Emile Smith Rowe appeared to get in each other’s way and the final effort went just wide of the post.
We did finally break the deadlock on the half-hour mark when the defender failed to clear after the corner, and it bounced to Saka just outside the area to place his effort into the left of the goal, and we now had a much-deserved lead.
Shortly after, you have to think that the home side are extremely lucky to keep 11-men on the field. Tyrone Mings floors Bukayo Saka with a slide tackle with his studs up, and appears to have avoided a red because his foot was extremely close to the ground, but whether you believed that was a red card or not, he was seen to have shoved Granit Xhaka directly in the face amidst the controversy as the two teams pleaded with the official to influence his decision.
The youngster limped off the field but did manage to re-enter, and eventually continued until the 70th minute when he was replaced by Nicolas Pepe.
The game did get a bit scrappy with a number of fouls slowing the game right down, but with the lead it wasn’t a huge deal for us as we continued to control the game. Villa appeared to be growing frustrated with their lack of success on the field, and likely feel like they were stifled out of playing to the best of their abilities, which is credit upon himself to the setup imposed by Mikel Arteta.
We eventually held onto the 1-0 win despite a few mediocre chances for the Villains late on, but all-in-all it was a solid performance, and we tighten our grip on fourth spot in the table ahead of Man United, who now trail us by four points having played once more than us.
Patrick