PL Update: Arsenal outlast Villa in scrappy win
Cara Banks, Robbie Earle, and Danny Higginbotham react to Arsenal's 1-0 win against Aston Villa and hear from Matty Cash after the match.
Video Transcript
Welcome you into our studios as part of our Goal Zone today.
Let's get straight to some of the reaction.
Cara Banks, Robbie Earl, Danny Higginbotham, and we'll check out the highlights from Villa Park and what was ultimately just a one-goal decider this afternoon.
There was a chance in the first half, Danny, and it came from Aston Villa.
Actually, it was, I'll take it.
It was the one chance really in, in the first half that Villa had, and the shot doesn't count on target when it hits a crossbar.
Arsenal think there's a foul there.
Play goes on, Buendia hits a shot.
Beats Raya but doesn't beat the crossbar.
And then into the second half, just wanna clear this up 'cause Arsenal think they've got a penalty kick there.
Saka goes down under the challenge from Mings, and the referee points to the penalty spot.
But the big question is where's the contact, not where the two players end up.
The contact's outside the box there, you see, so it's actually a foul outside the box and a free kick, not a penalty kick.
The referee goes to VAR and gets to that decision.
And from there, Martin Odegaard from acute angles just trying to beat Suzuki on his debut.
Wrong side of the post as far as he's concerned.
Now, when the players were coming back on pitch at halftime, this was a conversation between Calafiori and Ezzor, and actually it came to fruition, Danny.
Oh, it most certainly did, and it's really good play down the left-hand side.
You talk about the fullbacks and the wingers joining in and, and connecting.
It's exactly what the two of them do.
Ezzor plays the ball into Calafiori, who puts the ball into the middle, and Saka is in the right place at the right time, but it's just the link up.
Cash finding himself in a really difficult position.
He has to go out to Ezzor, leaves a space for Calafiori, great ball into the box, and then Saka does the rest.
But that's what Arsenal are so good at doing, creating two versus one situations, and they most certainly made it work in their favor there.
And then not too long after that, they have a- another opportunity.
The ball goes through to Havertz here.
Just makes them run.
Just a second too late.
He's in an offside position, but Suzuki doesn't know that.
Really good save, but what I wanna talk about is a substitute making his debut for Arsenal, Guendouzi.
He's gonna fit so well into this Arsenal team.
Lovely ball through to Havertz, was just not able to put the ball into the back of the net.
Like I say, it wouldn't have counted, but a good save from Suzuki and a good ball from Guendouzi as well.
So three points once again for the Arsenal, and Aston Villa continue to struggle.
It's not been a great August for them.
You look at the results in all competitions, they've failed to get a win both last season and this season.
They haven't even got a draw, which they did have at the start of the Premier League season last year.
It actually took them until their fifth game to get a victory.
Obviously turned things around and finished fourth, secured Champions League, but they have lost at least six of their key players from that team last season.
Let's hear from one of the players in the team tonight, Aston Villa's Matty Cash.
Matty, second loss of the season.
How devastated you are just after the game?
Yeah, obviously disappointing, to lose another game.
Obviously, we knew they were obviously a difficult opponent, but, yeah, we wanna win, you know.
Obviously, in the last couple years we've had a, a mentality of winning, and obviously it's never nice to lose.
So, yeah, we'll pick ourself up.
I think we had a few positives.
Obviously a new team.
We're sort of Not obviously everyone's new, but there's a lot of change at the minute, so we just ni- need to try and stay positive and, and keep working hard.
And yeah, hopefully results will come, yeah.
Do you have any impression that Arsenal made a few easy mistakes in the first and the second hal- half, but you couldn't overturn them to, to scoring chances?
Yeah, it's difficult, I think.
If you're being realistic, obviously you look at the, the, the two teams, how much money they can spend and how much money we can spend, and players we're losing.
And, but without sounding, obviously with excuses, but if you're trying to be realistic, you're playing against a team that are spending millions and millions and it's difficult, you know?
So yeah, obviously we just have to try and be positive and deal with the, the circumstances and obviously, hopefully we can, we can get results in the next few weeks.
We have to get results quickly.
But yeah, being positive, you know, I think obviously we had a few good chances and to, to obviously not score is disappointing, yeah.
But in my humble opinion, your individual performance was very good.
You made Arteta to take a decision to, to take that Solis for the, for the second half.
Yeah, just try and do my best, you know, every game.
Obviously, yeah, me personally, obviously I just wanna try and help the team as much as I can, and obviously the most important thing is to try and win the game, but we obviously didn't, so, but on a personal level, obviously, yeah, I felt good, to be fair.
And hopefully I can keep growing and helping the team, yeah.
It's your seventh season at Villa, I think, so you one of, you are one of the guys who is the oldest now in the team.
Many of your colleagues left the, the Villa, so who are you gonna miss the most?
Yeah, obviously it's a big change at the minute, players coming and going.
And obviously wish the players that have left the best.
We had obviously achieved history together last season, which was amazing.
And wish them all the best.
Yeah, we're gonna miss them all obviously, 'cause we built a really good friendship and not only on the pitch, but off the pitch we were really close as well, so yeah, obviously disappointing to lose them, but then there's obviously a new, a chapter for everyone.
Well, with this win at Villa Park, Arsenal become one of just four Premier League sides to open the season with two wins from two games.
It's not that surprising that Man City and Chelsea are two of the other sides to do so.
But the fourth is newly promoted Hull City after their win at Coventry.
Aston Villa visit Hull next Saturday looking for their first Premier League points of the season.
