Five years ago, Unai Emery’s baffling selections down the stretch could be said to have cost Arsenal qualification for the Champions League. In 2024 he went much better, Arsene Wenger’s successor wrecking the title dreams of his former employer by taking six points from a possible six. Turn just one of those defeats into a win and Mikel Arteta would be champion.
There is of course no personal malice between the Basque natives, indeed Arteta never stints in praise for his predecessor. Anyone who remembers the fire that could spark in the Arsenal manager from something as innocuous as an Ivan Toney tweet, who saw the drubbing meted out on West Ham after they had the temerity to beat them in December, will know that Arteta is going to be intent on revenge. “I don’t do things personally,” said the manager in his pre-match press conference, “I just have the will to win and prepare the team in the best possible way, regardless of who we are playing against.”
That will to win is sure to be all the stronger given the manner of those defeats. On each occasion Arsenal played extremely impressive football, indeed Arteta had a point after the home meeting in April when he labelled their first half “one of the best performances by far” of their season. In that period they put up 14 shots worth 1.45 expected goals (xG) without return. Across the full expanse of their two meetings with Villa they had 30 shots to their opponents 21, 3.04 xG to 1.51, 84 penalty box touches to 29. The aggregate score? 3-0 to Aston Villa.
Had Leandro Trossard not swept a close range shot at Emiliano Martinez’s legs or Bukayo Saka made a sweeter contact with his weaker foot several months earlier, Arsenal might just be champions. Such are the margins when you are vying with Manchester City, or indeed trying to overcome Emery’s ferocious Aston Villa. Those margins could even have been wider. Supporters will point to the contentious equaliser ruled out at Villa Park for a Kai Havertz handball, in his preparations Arteta will doubtless point to how many other opportunities his side wasted.
A side that averaged 2.25 offsides per game in last season’s Premier League were caught by Villa four times at Villa Park and five times at the Emirates Stadium. Now, it should be noted, this is something of an Emery specialty. His side’s 167 successful offsides were 42 more than the next best team in the league last season, Tottenham, the only other one to reach triple figures. The high line marshalled by Pau Torres was aided by the pressure put on the ball by Villa further up the pitch, where they were masters at forcing opponents to take just one more touch. By that time the forward had already made his run and Villa had won themselves a free kick.
Equally, in Arsenal’s specific case, a string of their offsides were a result of their own inability to get the ball out quickly enough, rather than anything Villa have got right. Indeed, in this instance below Diego Carlos has got it all wrong, dropping a fair way behind the rest of his line and giving Gabriel Jesus space to work with. Despite being under what, for him, is manageable pressure, Martin Odegaard takes just too long to release the ball and Villa get away with allowing a pass into their penalty area.
Similarly at Villa Park, Oleksandr Zinchenko has all the room he might need, and on this occasion he has the benefit of two men trying to penetrate behind this sky-scraping backline. Both Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli have the pace to give themselves a little more wiggle room, but they might also feel that Zinchenko should have released them sooner.
Plenty of the other seven have a similar look to them. At Villa Park in particular, Arsenal seemed nothing less than baffled that they were being afforded so much space in behind to attack. This time they will surely be more prepared to exploit the gamble Emery is making. Get that right, and avoid the poor form in front of goal that cursed them last season, and Arsenal should have enough to get the job done, even against a side as impressive as Villa looked on the opening weekend.
Scroll down for our predictions in all of the games from week two of the Premier League season:
Premier League week two picks
Saturday, August 24
Brighton 2, Manchester United 2
Crystal Palace 1, West Ham 1
Fulham 0, Leicester 0
Manchester City 4, Ipswich 1
Southampton 1, Nottingham Forest 1
Tottenham 2, Everton 0
Aston Villa 1, Arsenal 2
Sunday, August 25
Bournemouth 2, Newcastle 1
Wolves 0, Chelsea 1
Liverpool 2, Brentford 0
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