Arsenal fought hard last night to beat a resilient Aston Villa 1-0 away at Villa Park.
As they say, “1-0 is better than 0-1”, and despite it perhaps not being the most entertaining of matches for the right reasons, with poor refereeing at times in the opinion of some, the three points were the main thing. The victory saw the Gunners maintain their 100% start to the Premier League season after two games.
I admittedly felt a bit unsure about yesterday’s game considering we lost 2-1 at Villa Park last season and hadn’t won there for two campaigns, since August 2024 when Leandro Trossard and Thomas Partey grabbed two second-half strikes for Mikel Arteta’s side.
However, at the same time Brighton had thrashed the current reigning Europa League winners 4-0 last week out of the blue, so who’s to say we couldn’t have done the same?
Saka delivers for Arsenal again
Well, in the end it was Bukayo Saka who saved the day for millions of Gooners moments before the hour mark, when he tapped the ball into the back of the net from inches away from the goal line following a precise low cross from Riccardo Calafiori inside the left-hand side of the box.
Saka has been a saviour ever since he became a first-team regular six years ago, and his stats don’t lie, with him having accumulated 62 strikes. This isn’t bad going for the 24-year-old, who is more of a darting winger than a striker and is yet to reach a quarter of a century of life experiences.
His relentless work ethic, attacking credentials, as well as his uncanny defending for a player in his position, have constantly earned the respect of the Arsenal and footballing world, putting him up there among the best players in not only Europe but the world.
Saka has become Arsenal’s man for the big moments
There are multiple times he’s rescued the men in red and white apart from last night. For instance, his long-range screamer for Arsenal during a 3-2 beating of Manchester United in 2023, or when he assisted the Gunners twice in a late turnaround versus Wolves in December, with two accredited assists, ensuring we defeated them 2-1, which if we hadn’t done would’ve cost us the title race.
Without Saka, Arsenal wouldn’t be the successful side they are now and would ultimately struggle to take the ball forward down the right wing, something the Englishman has constantly brought to the Arsenal attacking table.
COYG!
Liam Harding
What do you think, Gooners? Just how important is Bukayo Saka to this Arsenal side, and where would we be without him producing these decisive moments? Let us know in the comments.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us through this link…
We’re lucky to have a highly skilled and hardworking inverted RW like Saka. He’s also rarely injured
But I think Madueke will shine this season. Saka won’t be able to play all EPL and UCL games
I agree that Saka is a brilliant player and when he’s on form he’s a massive game changer if he gets a clear opportunity in front of goal – including his unselfish assists.
However:
The Final paragraph isn’t exactly true / accurate based at least on last season.
—————————————————————
Without Saka, Arsenal wouldn’t be the successful side they are now and would ultimately struggle to take the ball forward down the right wing, something the Englishman has constantly brought to the Arsenal attacking table.
————————————————————-
Arsenal won the P L by 7 points and with a game to spare. – They had the meanest Defence – Credit to Saliba and the whole defensive unit for that.
Raya won the Golden Gloves
Declan Rice ran himself into the ground and was a great Captain in Odegard’s injury absence, not to mention his loss of form last season. He led by example in every game he played – he always does.
We had the second best Goals scored numbers last season with 71 – only 5 behind Man City – who came 2nd – 7 points behind Arsenal.
Saka, brilliant as he certainly is, had, by his standards, a poor season, and had injury issues.
This is just an analysis of the P L – NOT the C L or our League Cup (Final) run and F A Cup run.
In Football, winning is a Team effort, and Arsenal are where they are today, because over the last 4 years they have developed into a really good Team.
Over exaggeration once again. He worked hard and more importantly was there to take the chance that came his way.. Aside from his goal, very little that he tried came off. Had he not scored his overall performance would have ranked with a Madouke or the type that would have had his haters baying at Martinelli for not being a Ronaldinho or Ronaldo. Except in his head, Saka is neither of those two Brazilians. A lot of what he tries looks dumb. Of course he’s a hero if he can pull something off, which last season was rare. Hopefully with Bruno and a fit Odegard around him , he might get a bit more football wise. He should because his legs have taken a beating over the past five seasons.
Jesus! I cant believe the cub is resolving to use the same set of attackers we had last season, another truma beckons this season unless somehow this guys miraculously start steping up their game or max downman become our lamine yamal and messiah
The attack was bang average last season and now we’ve lost martineli,jesus and trosard yet the club didn’t improve the attack, old trossard is even better than tzolis😅
Honestly the club has been dissapointing, WE ARE ARESENAL, we play fluid and compact football like the invisibles but now we play flat and defensive boring football.
arteta said after the ucl final that we need to upgrade the attack&creativity department but they’ve only downgraded it to me.
Like I said we need miracle
Its sad but COYG still
I am a little shocked and surprised too, its letting wanneri go on loan that surprised me.
Trossard Jesus and martinelli all have pretty much a fixed position they play at but Ethan gave us flexibility along the front line since we’d sold 3 attackers.
Last year eze covered 10 a lot when Odegard didn’t play. I wonder if Arteta plans to use odegard & Guimares at 10 and play Eze at LW?
We also hope that.Max can play more along the front line.
Whos next up from the academy?
I’m very dissapointed with the outcome of this transfer window. Arsenal wanted to strenght the attack, but sold 3 attackers and only got 1 in return.
What a disaster.
Strange one waking up to see we hadn’t got a marquee forward signing in .
The money was obviously there as we had no qualms paying 125 million for Alverez ,we had ample time to get deals done and let slip the best available to concentrate on players that we didn’t stand a chance of getting ,cock heavy defensive football again I foresee this season .
Letting Martinelli go (squad depth )looks a right cock up.
I to think it strange that a team that finally got over the line and won the League, have now stood still at least in the attacking department of the team.
While I admire the teams ethos at defending as a team, and getting these 1-0 to the Arsenal wins. It will come back and bite us should we keep relying on these single goal wins.
I was hoping that having finally got the League title last season, the team would be freed up to play a bit more expansive, early days I know. But it appears that Arteta concerns himself more with the midfield and defense at the expense of the attacking third of the team.
I think they’ve taken a big risk in not bringing in another attacker, maybe they’re waiting for the January window, that to is a risk. As most clubs are not interested in selling their top players in that month.
Champions we maybe, but seeing the lack of a top attacking signing throughout the whole summer feels like a lack of ambition to me.
Letting Martinelli go without a replacement looks amateurish, hope it’s not a mistake.
Sure we didn’t bring in our attacking targets, but did we need to sell Martinelli?
If we bring in someone in January then ok, but hoping Eze and Madueke are the answer on the LW is a mistake imo.
It’s worrying that we sold Trossard, Martinelli and Jesus and got Tzolis. I don’t think Tzolis is the answer. But we’ll see. I’m especially worried about LW
If a few of our attackers get injured, we’ll be in trouble.
Considering we’ve been debating for many years exactly how inadequate the LW play has been, it shouldn’t be all that big of a miss, lol.
doesn’t mean you make it worse
That’s like having a rubbish car that you need to drive to work so you sell that car and now don’t have one
now you have to take the bus so you should have just as well kept the car