Aston Villa 0-2 Arsenal: The Gunners’ chances of winning the Premier League are severely damaged by late goals from Watkins and Bailey.
Ollie Watkins and Leon Bailey scored late goals at the Emirates to severely undermine Arsenal's hopes of winning the Premier League.
London: As Aston Villa defeated Arsenal 2-0 on Sunday to put Manchester City atop the Premier League, Unai Emery once more jeopardized the title aspirations of his previous team.
Leon Bailey gave Villa the lead in the 84th minute, and Ollie scored the second goal late in the game after Villa had withstood Arsenal’s siege for much of the first.
After Liverpool’s 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace at Anfield earlier in the day, Arsenal became the second title contender to collapse at home in as many hours…
In 2018, Emery took over as Arsenal’s manager in place of Arsene Wenger, but he was fired after just 18 months. As of right now, his Villa has kept Arsenal’s explosive onslaught scoreless.
It marked Arsenal’s first league defeat of 2024 and brought up memories of the previous campaign, in which the side had held a late-season lead in the rankings before collapsing.
“This is the time to respond, to demonstrate your integrity, your leadership,” Arteta stated. With the victory, Villa moves three points clear of Tottenham in the foot…
In the first thirty-five minutes, Arsenal had dominated the majority of the game and had produced six half-chances, while Villa appeared dangerous when they went for…
Thus, the arrival of the opener did not come as a shock.
Bailey received a cross from Lucas Digne that was allowed to bounce across the area by Arsenal’s defenders, and the replacement had… While Arsenal was pressing for an equalizer, Villa launched a counterattack, with Youri Tielemans sending Watkins through on goal and… With his 19th league goal of the year, Watkins, an avid Arsenal supporter since childhood, is now just one goal behind Man City’s Erling Haaland in the scoring column……
“It’s tremendous to lose to Arsenal when they’re controlling games and playing such excellent football; it just goes to show where we’ve come from and where we’re going,” Watkins remarked. “It was perhaps the ideal performance to give away. Many people had doubts about us since they believed we played good football but were unable to win this game. Many people have been proven wrong by us.
The hosts had their greatest chance of the game in the 39th minute when Watkins struck the crossbar and Emiliano Martinez, a former goalkeeper for Arsenal, made a fantastic save a minute later to save Leandro Trossard from close range.
Martinez remarked, “We knew an away win would help our Champions League hopes.” “We have five finals left; this is the first step.” (AP)
