Arsenal win over Villa hints at title mentality

It’s still very early; the picture hasn’t cleared yet. Is what we are seeing happenstance or part of a pattern? Just one of those things or a definite flaw? A fluke or an identifiable characteristic? That’s one of the reasons there’s been so much talk about the chaos at Chelsea: the current shenanigans follow two years of chaos at Chelsea; it’s probably safe to think that the ongoing sense of chaos is real and a chaotic 6-2 win at Wolves on Sunday isn’t going to change that.
It’s also why Manchester City’s win away at Chelsea last week felt so ominous. Last season Chelsea twice forced draws against City; if City could beat them so straightforwardly, even with a number of players still returning after their summer exertions, then when are they going to drop points this season? Where is the opportunity for other teams?
Which brings us to Arsenal. Last season, they took 89 points. In any era before the world of Sheikh Mansoor-owned, Pep Guardiola-coached Manchester City, that would not only have been a title-winning season, but a season of extreme dominance. It was only a point less than they took in their invincible season. But in football’s modern age of stratification, with clubs owned by states and oligarchs and private equity, it wasn’t enough. And so rather than praise the achievement, you look for faults; what can they improve?
And that’s how Arsenal, after one of the all-time great Premier League campaigns, found themselves criticised for their mentality. In adversity, they were not good. Last season, when Newcastle scored a controversial goal against them, when Fulham came back at them, when West Ham proved more stubborn than expected, when errors let Bayern back into the game, they buckled. Which was simultaneously true and ludicrous. Perfection is a wearying ideal; football would be a more appealing place, both emotionally and as a spectacle, if a team were allowed some slip-ups – as they always used to be.
Last season Arsenal lost twice to Aston Villa. When Unai Emery’s team won 2-0 at the Emirates in April, the initiative in the title race passed to City. The season before last, Arsenal won 4-2 at Villa with two injury-time goals but it was such a fraught affair that it suggested the title charge was unsustainable. That’s why Saturday’s win, with all due caveats about it being only the second weekend of the season, felt so significant.
It could easily have gone the other way. With the score at 0-0, Ollie Watkins missed a glorious chance and was then denied by a brilliant David Raya save (when he probably should have given the keeper no chance by directing his follow-up header nearer the corner). For an hour or so, Arsenal offered very limited threat. But the substitutions changed the game.
After 65 minutes Jhon Durán and Jacob Ramsey came on for Villa in place of Watkins and John McGinn, and Leandro Trossard replaced Gabriel Martinelli for Arsenal. Villa’s press, so stifling until then, was momentarily softened. Martin Ødegaard suddenly found space just outside the box. There was an element of fortune about Bukayo Saka’s cross falling to Trossard, but on the other hand the Belgian had slipped away from Kosta Nedeljković. Trossard took the chance and suddenly the dynamic of the game was changed.
After Manchester United’s defeat at Brighton, their manager, Erik ten Hag, spoke of the need to be clinical in both boxes. This was the sort of thing he meant. This was essentially an even game: the xG had Villa winning 1.2-0.9. But Trossard took his chance, and Watkins took neither of his, on one case thwarted by an exceptional save. The question then is whether that was essentially random, or whether such things are replicable.
Saturday’s win could be portrayed as an Arsenal masterclass, drawing Villa’s sting, holding them at arm’s length and then picking them off. Or it could be regarded as them getting away with it as last season’s fourth top-scorer in the Premier League, the forward who scored the last-minute winner for England with icy precision in the semi-final of the Euros, had a rare off day. The truth, almost certainly, is somewhere in between.
But where there is encouragement for Arsenal is that they remained calm. There was none of the sense of panic that characterised certain tough games last season. It’s too early to know for sure whether that’s evidence of a harder edge, but there is at least a hint in that direction. More concretely, it’s a win in a fixture they lost last season; in that sense, they’re currently three points up.
The problem for them is that City, having won at Chelsea and then dismissed Ipswich with an almost casual brutality, are already two points up on their equivalent fixtures from last season, and looking remorseless.