The really worrying thing about this for Arsenal, the thing that will have kept their supporters awake last night, is that Mikel Arteta’s team suddenly looked scared to win.
Teams play badly. Mistakes are made. Chances are missed. It happens all this time. But when teams play like Arsenal did here, just as they find themselves in sight of a glorious push through the finishing line, then it tends to hint at something deeper and more significant. It tends to hint at psychological weakness.
That’s a notion that Arteta’s players must dispel quickly and before it takes root. They are in Munich with a Champions League quarter-final locked at 2-2 on Wednesday night. That would be a very good place to start their recovery.
The story of this afternoon was simple. Arsenal, handed an opportunity to turn a three-horse race in to a straight fight with Manchester City after Liverpool’s home defeat to Crystal Palace, were absolutely fine in the first half. They didn’t score but they played well enough. The dominated the ball and the territory and created a couple of very good opportunities that they narrowly failed to take.
But then, sometime between the end of the first period and the start of the second, something changed. It was as though a different set of players emerged from the dressing room for the second 45 minutes.
Ollie Watkins scored a sublime goal to help Aston Villa seal a 2-0 victory against Arsenal
It was a dismal defeat for Arsenal who missed the opportunity to go top of the Premier League
Mikel Arteta demanded his players respond ‘with character and leadership’ after the match
Arsenal have been in such good form recently but here a cloak of confidence worn so effortlessly during a flawless run of victories and clean sheets fell to the ground as quickly as the sun can disappear behind a cloud. And when the darkness came, it stayed.
Fear. There it was. Anxiety. That, too. You could see it on their faces and in their body language and in their football. Forward passes became sideways ones. Ambition morphed into caution. Hope became fear.
And, by the time the Emirates had emptied in added time, all Arsenal’s deepest worries had come surging back to the surface.
It’s only one bad result. The Premier League table still offers hope. It’s all very tight up there. But the truth is that, in the second half, Arsenal were worse than Liverpool had been against Palace. Liverpool, for all their own problems, had kept pushing against Palace. There was something calamitous and vaguely comedic about their finishing.
Arsenal? They created hardly a chance during a second half that Villa dominated. By the end it was Villa pushing for more goals. After falling behind with six minutes left, Arsenal never once looked liked rescuing so much as a point.
Earlier it had indeed been different. When Arteta lifted his arms at the crowd towards the end of the opening half, it seemed a little unnecessary. The home fans had been supportive and calm and their team’s football had been similarly purposeful.
After neither side could take the lead, Leon Bailey scored the opener with a driving low strike
The 26-year-old came on as a substitute to score his ninth Premier League goal of the season
Martin Odegaard was the game’s best player, but his frustrations were visible during the match
Villa hadn’t been in the game in the first half. Ollie Watkins had struck the base of the post in the 39th minute but that had been on the back of a rare raid and indeed a mistake by Arsenal defender Gabriel. It was an outlier moment, nothing more.
Arsenal had played all the football. Martin Odegaard, sitting deep in the orbit of Declan Rice, was the game’s best player.
His passing, especially in to the feet of Kai Havertz, was impeccable. On the right side Bukayo Saka seemed to have the number of Villa defender Lucas Digne and it looked as though a goal would come once the England player got the weight of his deliveries right.
It almost happened in the 18th minute, Gabriel Jesus heading a Saka cross in to the side netting at the far post. Havertz was also denied twice by Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez after being released by Odegaard. Saka then played a one-two with Ben White before easing on to his left foot to curl a shot inches wide.
How Martinez saved from Leandro Trossard from just six yards five minutes before half-time, meanwhile, maybe only he will know. That turned out to be a hugely significant intervention from the former Arsenal goalkeeper.
On the touchline Unai Emery, the Villa manager, looked stressed. He was Arteta’s predecessor in north London, of course, and it was not a happy 18 months. This must have been bringing back a few unpleasant memories.
On reflection, Arsenal just needed a goal. They needed something to settle them and to draw Villa in to a more open game.
Youri Tielemans could have given the visitors the lead, but his curling shot struck the cross bar
Oleksandr Zinchenko had a tough match and allowed Tielemans to get his shot away on goal
As it was, the enormity of possibly failing to win the game seemed to collectively dawn on the Arsenal players sometime around 5.30pm. Things were never the same again from that point on.
Where they had played the ball so neatly and positively through the Villa lines in the first half, the second became an exercise in parallel lines. Back and forth across and back in front of the massed Villa ranks went the ball.
All cleverness gone. All attacking instinct submerged. It became easy for Villa to the point that the only shot of note from Arsenal during this spell was a low one from Jesus that Martinez pushed aside from 18 yards.
Moments before that Villa had served notice of their increasing ambition. Oleksandr Zinchenko lost the ball meekly in a tackle with Youri Tielemans and the Belgian midfielder curled a wonderful shot from the angle of the penalty area that hit the bar on the far side, dropped on to the post and somehow bounced clear.
Twenty minutes after that, Villa did score. They had enjoyed an increasing amount of possession and with that had come confidence and threat. So when Digne crossed low from the left and both Arsenal central defenders failed to intercept, it was no surprise to see Leon Bailey peeling away from a hesitant Rice to score at the far post.
A hammer blow struck by Emery’s excellent and persistent team, Arsenal had six minutes of regular time to respond. Instead Jorginho passed the ball straight to Tielemans within three minutes and when Watkins ran from his own half on to the through ball he held off Emile Smith Rowe to produce one of the best finishes of the season, lifting the ball up and over David Raya’s shoulder and in to the far corner with his right foot.
When teams play like Arsenal did here it tends to hint at something deeper and significant
This result, strangely, will have given Liverpool plenty of hope after they lost to Crystal Palace
Arsenal will have closed the curtains wondering if last season’s horror story was to be replayed
It was a world class finish, one that catapulted Villa in to the box seat ahead of Tottenham in the tussle for fourth and placed Arsenal in to that awful place where senses are scrambled and where what was previously ordered suddenly seems to be without reason.
This is what City do to you, of course. This is what the relentless nature of their football and their victories do to those teams trying to live with them. Arteta knows this. He used to work there, after all.
This, strangely, was a result that will have given hope to Liverpool. They will have gone to bed feeling better. Arsenal, meanwhile, will have closed the curtains wondering if last season’s horror story was about to be played back to them on repeat.
