9th December, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Unai Emery came back to haunt his former club on Saturday as Aston Villa stunned Arsenal by a lone goal to remain in third place in the premier league.
Villa, which had shocked Manchester City midweek took the lead in just seven minutes into the game.
A precise cutback on the goal line from Leon Bailey found John McGinn right in front of goal and he easily buried the ball inside the left post for the only goal of the match in favour of Villa.
As the first half wore on, Martin Odegaard collected a pass and ran with pace goalwards before unleashing a great drive from the edge of the box, but it went inches wide off the right post.
In the 36th minute, Gabriel Martinelli collected a brilliant pass inside the box and found himself in a goal-scoring opportunity. He took a shot, but the effort was well blocked by one of the defending players.
A minute later, Emiliano Martinez was forced into action to thwart Martin Odegaard (Arsenal). He found himself some space after latching on to a pass and unleashed a shot to the bottom left corner but couldn’t beat the keeper.
A few minutes after the restart, Gabriel Jesus went down under a challenge in the box, but the referee immediately waved away the appeals from all players.
Midway into the second half, Ollie Watkins received a short pass inside a congested penalty area and took a first-time shot. The effort headed towards the middle of the goal but David Raya blocked the shot with his legs.