Ratings & Reactions: Arsenal v Villa

[VillaJ100]

That second half was as good a half as I'd ever seen us play ever I think. Amazing job

[DJBOB]

Incredible angle. 
 
Shows how much work Ollie still had to do, but baited Raya to come closer when he paused near the top of the box as if to shoot. Credit to ESR for doing everything he could to put him off. Deflection aside, Ollie still meant to dink it past Raya - look how he leans back after the shot.
 
But also - questionable positioning by Raya? Comes out and gives Ollie a bevy of options if he wanted to. Plenty of room at the near post to slot it past him. Especially with ESR covering, don’t think there was any need to be far out as he was.

The away end - class  

 

Edited April 15 by DJBOB

[oishiiniku_uk]

Bukayo Saka whenever he goes to ground no matter how much contact there was and where on his body the 'contact' happened:

Edited April 15 by oishiiniku_uk

[AVFCDAN]

Massive statement win that shows we are still one of the top teams. We’ve had a few periods since Christmas where it’s looked like we are clinging on to top 4 and maybe slightly out of position but wins like this are a nice reminder that we can beat anyone on our day. 
 

This wasn’t an off day for Arsenal they just got outplayed, the same as City already did at home.

[Xann]

There were more melty meltdowns, but the imagery in this poorly synced response to the second goal is my surreal favourite, so far anyway.

[TRO]

49 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Yeah Emi gets more.of a pass because he actually spent a decade there.

As well as the fact that we know, when it comes to competetion he has ZERO allegiance to any one but HIS team when on the pitch.

The attempt at getting a headline out of Ollie or even potentially stoking fires for transfer speculation was sickening in my view.

How often do you see them asking Grealish about being a " Villa fan " as an example?

Disrespect imo, unless I'm reading too much into it and it's just a misjudgement.

No you, you are not reading too much in to it.....you are right.

They ( media) just crave headlines, irrespective of the truth....and we are not headlines, unless it's something derogatory....If the owners were selling, we would get attention.

We just have to do, what we did yesterday....and to hell with them.

They don't report on games, they just paint pictures, to suit their narrative.....it won't change, you can't force folk to like you.....and we can't make folk, feel about our club, like we do.

It even shows with the likes of Dion Dublin and Paul Merson, as random examples, how the producers, just get them to say, what they want......To listen to Dion, you would think he played most of his career with Man U instead of 12 games. It quite remarkable, really when he played 155 for us.

Most folk in the media see us as a mild irritation, and since we have had a manager, that can challenge the status quo, they try to ignore us.

 

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, Pinebro said:

And had it not been for our little blip.

And don't forget we should have had 6 points frorm man utd we'd be challenging for the title

If we didn't get an incredibly late win against Palace or draw against Sheffield United or late wins against Burnley and Luton then we'd be lower than where we are.  Similarly, if we won all of our games this season we'd be champions.  Football doesn't work like that.  You can't look at a tiny selection of past games in this manner.

We're where we are based on how well we've done over the course of the season and the victory against Arsenal was a great performance and bounce back from the disappointment in drawing against Brentford.

[Stevo985]

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

If we didn't get an incredibly late win against Palace or draw against Sheffield United or late wins against Burnley and Luton then we'd be lower than where we are.  Similarly, if we won all of our games this season we'd be champions.  Football doesn't work like that.  You can't look at a tiny selection of past games in this manner.

We're where we are based on how well we've done over the course of the season and the victory against Arsenal was a great performance and bounce back from the disappointment in drawing against Brentford.

Yep. If we'd beaten Brentford we quite easily could have been pumped yesterday.

All these tiny things matter

[Giro]

11 minutes ago, bobzy said:

If we didn't get an incredibly late win against Palace or draw against Sheffield United or late wins against Burnley and Luton then we'd be lower than where we are.  Similarly, if we won all of our games this season we'd be champions.  Football doesn't work like that.  You can't look at a tiny selection of past games in this manner.

We're where we are based on how well we've done over the course of the season and the victory against Arsenal was a great performance and bounce back from the disappointment in drawing against Brentford.

Agreed. Could have comfortably beat Brentford two nil last week but got battered 5-0 yesterday. Just have to go along with it 

[6065_Villa]

Brilliant win and double over Arsenal. Everyone played their part, the late games in Australia are killing me especially when trying not to shout and fai!ing miserably.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Yeh quite surprised how humble in defeat they have been. Feels out of character.

that's a strength and how it should be....Its a shame sections of the media, struggled with it.

Folk saying the title is all over, is rubbish.

I hope they win it, then we can say, we got the double over the champions.....with 2 clean sheets.

[HKP90]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

There were more melty meltdowns, but the imagery in this poorly synced response to the second goal is my surreal favourite, so far anyway.

I had no idea about the apple juice.

[bobzy]

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yep. If we'd beaten Brentford we quite easily could have been pumped yesterday.

All these tiny things matter

 

2 minutes ago, Giro said:

Agreed. Could have comfortably beat Brentford two nil last week but got battered 5-0 yesterday. Just have to go along with it 

Exactly.

And, whilst it's understandable for fans to discuss how a game is going and "OMG make some subs!" etc., we should really constantly remind ourselves that we're currently watching a good team playing under the greatest manager we've (I've) seen at Villa Park - and I genuinely think that.  Like having Martinez in goal, we have an absolutely World Class manager leading us.  It's hard to comprehend because we've been a very average if not poor (by Premier League standards) side for such a long time and a lot of the feelings we (I) have around games are sort of scarred by that... but this guy is an absolute master.

As Gary Neville said on his podcast...

"the next thing about Arsenal, today - and, I felt this as a coach when I was over in Spain - when you're up against a master of a coach, a top coach, who can design a game of football... he just designs a game of football, an outcome, he almost sees it and he's patient enough to sort of let it develop and his teams seem to have that ability to follow it.  He's a class act, Unai Emery... an absolute class act as a coach.  You know, in all the sort of "top jobs" that are mentioned - Villa, at this moment in time, what he's doing there is special - but you see all these jobs that are available in the summer at Barcelona and Bayern Munich and Manchester United and Liverpool and... he doesn't get mentioned!  He's not available either, but he's one of the best coaches in Europe
...
Arsenal were up against a coach with know-how today who imparts know-how and knowledge on his team and they (Arsenal) fell for that in the second half... what he did in the first half, they dug in and defended resolutely and they were compact.  But the start of the second half, he split his back line... the momentum shift in that one passing movement where they got out <some description>... I thought "oooh, it's changed.  He's got them playing."  He's gone in there at half time and gone "Now, we're gonna go play" and God they played in the second half, Villa... the reason Arsenal got beat today - yeah, you can point to many things - but in the end, they got out thought by a fantastic coach who designed the performance and designed the outcome and his team followed his instruction.  It was a brilliant away performance".

This is where we're at.  We're no longer reliant on individual brilliance from Benteke or Grealish or Martinez or whoever to get us a result.  We're reliant on a manager who sees everything and can react to everything.  We're reliant on having an entire squad with the right mentality to take on board exactly what he's saying.

We don't have the player quality and depth of, say, Man City - and this is a game of football, so sometimes surprising things happen - but we have a manager who is absolutely there.  He's right up there.

Lets just enjoy that for as long as we can.

[TRO]

I think the game showed why the bookies are rich.

No game in this league is a dead rubber....it's all on the day.

Arsenal fans were complaining that we was winning all the duels in the second half....we was, but it hasn't always been like that, in every game....particularly recently.

We showed many qualities on the day, many of us have been searching for....and it's a delight, when we see them.

We have to try and bring some of that to France, and if we do, we have a real chance to progress....but it's hard. These games are not easy.

 

[HKP90]

7 minutes ago, TRO said:

that's a strength and how it should be....Its a shame sections of the media, struggled with it.

Folk saying the title is all over, is rubbish.

I hope they win it, then we can say, we got the double over the champions.....with 2 clean sheets.

Yeah, I mean they are 2 points behind with 18 on the table. Man City on paper have the easiest run in, but there are some potential banana skins there. Wolves beat them last time out, and they only scraped a win 1-0 at Spurs. Arsenal (or Liverpool) would be mad to just give up now. Loads could still happen in this race.

[TRO]

8 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Yeah, I mean they are 2 points behind with 18 on the table. Man City on paper have the easiest run in, but there are some potential banana skins there. Wolves beat them last time out, and they only scraped a win 1-0 at Spurs. Arsenal (or Liverpool) would be mad to just give up now. Loads could still happen in this race.

Its like......Villa beat Arsenal, so Arsenal can't win the Title.....absolute Bolleaux...some of the junk flying around is laughable.

Its like Arsenals stock has dropped, losing to us.......This is a team that has lost 2 home games all season.

[DJBOB]

20 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Yeah, I mean they are 2 points behind with 18 on the table. Man City on paper have the easiest run in, but there are some potential banana skins there. Wolves beat them last time out, and they only scraped a win 1-0 at Spurs. Arsenal (or Liverpool) would be mad to just give up now. Loads could still happen in this race.

City don't have nearly as easy of a run in as it looks.

4/6 are away and while City have still been excellent away, they have not been invincible. They have 3 losses away, have a 14 GD differential home and away and a +7 xGD home and away. On top of that, they play 3 of the top 5 teams in terms of being stronger at home vs away. Fulham, in particular, have an astounding +28 GD split home/away but Brighton (+16 GD) and Forest (+16 GD) have significant home/away splits as well. Their home matches (Wolves/West Ham) are both sides that can explicitly hurt City on the counter. Then they also have to play Spurs away, which is no easy match as well.

Edited April 15 by DJBOB

[alreadyexists]

11 minutes ago, TRO said:

Its like......Villa beat Arsenal, so Arsenal can't win the Title.....absolute Bolleaux...some of the junk flying around is laughable.

Its like Arsenals stock has dropped, losing to us.......This is a team that has lost 2 home games all season.

Totally agree. Arsenal losing to us yesterday was being talked about along with the Liverpool loss to Palace… like both has slipped up to much lower opposition… I mean you wouldn’t expect either to lose at home, but us winning is hardly a 100/1 long shot! 

[useless]

I watched Gary Neville video reaction thing on youtube, and he pointed out that Arsenal losing to us was very different to Liverpool losing to Palace, essentially because we're obviously a good team with a good manager, he also said Arsenal played well, which I think he's right about, we just defended incredibly well first half, and had a plan that worked and in the end deserved our win, but it wasn't because Arsenal bottled it or whatever, as they perhaps have done in the past, if they'd have played like they did yesterday against most teams it would have been a fairly comfortable win

[tinker]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Most folk in the media see us as a mild irritation, and since we have had a manager, that can challenge the status quo, they try to ignore us.

 

It will change once one of the leading pundits starts to take notice the rest will follow, just need to finish the season giving our best shot. Still not over by a long way as we all know anyone can beat anyone in this fantastic league (despite manky City cheating)