At some point Arsenal may tire of lurching from famine to feast and offer their supporters a square meal. That day could hardly look further away, though, after a mindboggling 90 minutes into which they distilled their vibrant best and shambolic worst. At half-time there was the sense that the Unai Emery era could be on the verge of falling into accelerated decline. His team were behind to a John McGinn goal and a man down after Ainsley Maitland-Niles’s careless red card. They had barely done a thing right but by the end they were celebrating a man who can do no wrong.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had already scored 13 goals in his last 11 club games so when he won and shaped to take a free-kick just outside the penalty area it was tempting, just for once, to make a prediction in a game involving Arsenal. They had just levelled the score for a second time, through Calum Chambers, and an atmosphere that had previously hummed with discontent was now crackling. The position looked set up for someone of his peerless finishing ability and so it proved, his whipped effort flying past Tom Heaton to send the Emirates delirious.
For 45 minutes none of those words were close to anyone’s lips, because Arsenal were catatonic. Their midfield of Mattéo Guendouzi, Granit Xhaka and Dani Ceballos may as well have been holograms for all the pressure they exerted on a Villa side that, while happy to test their hosts’ weaknesses, should not have posed an extraordinary threat. McGinn had already worked Bernd Leno twice when, escaping an inexplicably static Guendouzi, he nudged Anwar El Ghazi’s delivery past the Arsenal keeper and it sparked what appeared to be an unravelling.
Maitland-Niles had missed a decent chance within two minutes and had also been guilty of standing off El Ghazi before the goal. He completed an unholy trinity when, having already been booked, he followed through on Neil Taylor. The referee, Jon Moss, was unimpressed by the fact Maitland-Niles had won the ball and Moss waited while the right-back, who had injured more than his pride, received treatment before showing a second yellow card.
Emery said he had been thinking of substituting Maitland-Niles at the interval, an event he was presumably desperate for by that point. His players had shown little discipline, a fact Sokratis Papastathopoulos underlined with a risible attempt to show Wesley had clipped him in the face. They rode out some early Villa pressure after the restart, though, and had begun to force a few hacked clearances when Guendouzi, a force of nature throughout the second period, thrust into the area and was fouled by Björn Engels. Aubameyang was happy to let Nicolas Pépé, who had looked like a player burdened both by a £72m price tag and the need for a goal, to take the penalty and it was duly dispatched.
But Villa were back ahead within two minutes after Jack Grealish, leaving three Arsenal players trailing before crossing for Wesley to nick the ball home, produced a penetrative run of his own. Arsenal had shot themselves in the foot again and when Xhaka, a lightning rod for fans’ frustrations, was jeered upon his 72nd minute substitution there seemed little prospect of the clouds lifting.
Nobody told that to Guendouzi, who struck a post and continued to drive forward furiously. When he clipped a deep ball towards Chambers, who had replaced Bukayo Saka, the otherwise impeccable Tyrone Mings attempted to cushion a header towards Taylor rather than making a simple clearance. Chambers was alert, intercepting and jabbing an impressive effort high into the net.
Aubameyang then completed the turnaround and left the Villa manager, Dean Smith, ruing their inability to finish the game. “We paid them too much respect and tried to hang on to the lead,” he said, and it is true that Arsenal had looked there for the taking.
“We lost a little bit of control, but we took a few risks to come back,” a far happier Emery said. Their lack of cohesion should really have caught up with them here, but Arsenal got away with it and the rollercoaster shows no sign of easing up (GUARDIAN)