Aston Villa 2-4 Arsenal: Gunners pull off remarkable comeback win

Little by little, the dream had faded away. Arsenal had twice come from behind at Villa Park, but Martin Odegaard had missed an open goal with 12 minutes remaining and it looked as though two more valuable points would be lost in the title race.

It seemed as if this was just another episode watching in grim fascination as Arsenal’s title challenge imploded. A football match turned into a goalscoring convention.

And then everything changed. Three minutes into added time, the ball passed across the face of the Aston Villa box to Jorginho and he smashed an unstoppable shot over Emiliano Martínez’s shot.

Arsenal’s hearts soared and then sank as the ball shot off the crossbar. But when Martinez fell to the ground, the ball bounced off the back of his head and across the goal line.

The Arsenal fans cornered in the sector adjacent to the goal went crazy. With their former boss Unai Emery now in charge at Villa, Arsenal had been set up to fall victim to the ‘law of ex’ here.

Instead, they made the ex’s law work for them. Martinez was once the Emirates goalkeeper and hasn’t endeared himself to Arsenal fans since his move. The traveling followers especially reveled in his despair.

It wasn’t over either. In the dying seconds of the game, Martinez came up to join an attack and as Arsenal broke away, Gabriel Martinelli ran onto a pass just inside Villa’s middle and was greeted with the sight of an open goal.

He made a couple of touches and when he got to the edge of the box, he raised his arms in the air like a rugby player celebrating an early try or a running back who knows he’s about to step into the end zone.

It’s not normally done in football, but the amazing nature of the game’s transformation was such that Arsenal were gone within the span of three minutes from a team that was watching their season unravel, a team that was at the edge of a fourth league game. without a win, on a team that had regained all its swagger.

The victory moved them three points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League again, at least for a couple of hours. Maybe this kind of melodrama was just what they needed. Perhaps invoking this triumph of adversity will give them the inspiration to rejoin the battle with City. Maybe now, they will believe.

In the stands, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks watched from the directors’ box. In the late ’80s, he starred in a movie called Big about a boy who puts money in a slot at the fairgrounds and becomes a man.

Eventually, the man becomes the boy again and for 90 minutes at Villa Park, it felt like this was the end of Arsenal’s chance to blend in with the adults. Six minutes later, and maybe this particular movie has a different ending.

Villa had gone ahead after five minutes. Matty Cash stole the ball from Olesksandr Zinchenko deep in the Villa half and lobbed a brilliant, controlled pass into the path of Watkins. Watkins faced William Saliba, one of Arsenal’s best players this season, he edged past him on the outside and then fired a low left-footed shot past Aaron Ramsdale’s dive.

It was a good ending, but it all seemed too easy. Arsenal’s defense had been unlocked in Villa’s first attack. Saliba had been isolated so early in the game and Watkins had passed him as if he wasn’t there, with no defender challenging. Arsenal was stunned.

A couple of minutes later, Ramsdale dawdled with the ball on his line and left it so long to clear that Watkins charged down. The goalkeeper was relieved to see the ball go wide.

Little by little, however, Arsenal regrouped. Tyrone Mings pulled off a brilliant saving lunge to blast Eddie Nketiah’s point-blank header off the crossbar and even if it soon became clear the effort would have been ruled out for earlier offside, it was a reminder of Mings’ value to the side.

A couple of minutes later, however, it was a mistake by the central defender that allowed Arsenal to get back into the game.

Ben White sliced ​​a ball from the right and Mings intercepted it near the goal line. Instead of heading towards a corner, he directed it towards the heart of the area where Bukayo Saka waited.

Saka let the ball bounce and then hit it straight and true past Emiliano Martinez and into the top of the net. It was a big mistake by Mings but it reflected Arsenal’s recovery.

Arsenal seemed to have settled in his path, but after half an hour, Villa took the lead again. Moreno overlapped on the left and ran for a ball inside White. He crossed for Emiliano Buendía, who handled the ball so beautifully that he pinned two Arsenal defenders on the spot. The ball ran to Philippe Coutinho, who tapped in and then swept the ball past Ramsdale.

Arsenal again dominated possession after the break and pressed for an equalizer. Saka, who had been involved in an altercation with Coutinho before the break and had been roughed up by Villa, was a constant threat, but it was another White cross ten minutes into the second half that came close. of the equalizing goal. . Nketiah rose to meet him, but his headbutt bounced off the face of the bar.

However, Villa were now too passive and a draw seemed inevitable. It came after an hour when Saka and Odegaard took a penalty corner and Odegaard rolled it past Zinchenko on the edge of the Villa box.

Zinchenko had plenty of space and plenty of time to steady himself and unleashed an arrow from a left-footed shot that went past Martinez’s outstretched left hand.

Arsenal should have taken the lead with 13 minutes remaining when Nketiah caught Ezri Konsa in possession on the edge of the Villa box and slipped a pinpoint pass to Odegaard, who was ten yards unmarked and faced with an open goal. The shot seemed like a formality, but somehow Odegaard dragged his shot wide of the left post.

Arsenal couldn’t believe they had wasted such a golden opportunity and a few minutes later they almost had more reason to regret it. Villa substitute Leon Bailey took a high ball from the sky, killing it beautifully on the instep, and shot towards goal. He beat his man to his and his ferocious drive was destined for the top of the net until Ramsdale tagged him off the bar with a brilliant parry reaction.

However, Arsenal would not give up the dream. Saliba should have scored with a header from a corner, but then Jorginho unleashed his lightning bolt and Martinelli plunged into the breakaway. And in the stands, Tom Hanks probably felt that he could make a decent script out of this.