Aston Villa held out for a 1-0 win over Arsenal on Saturday, with John McGinn’s goal enough to split the two sides and secure all three points.
The win keeps Villa in third place in the Premier League table, solidifying our position in the top four, and just two points adrift of league leaders Liverpool, 16 games into the campaign.
READ MORE: What Unai Emery said in assessment of Villa’s battling win vs Arsenal
Having controlled and dominated in our win over Manchester City in midweek, Villa showed a different side to us in this one as showed grit and resiliency to battle through after taking an early lead.
It was a top goal from McGinn, but the entire team made key contributions as we successfully protected our lead despite coming under pressure, to cap off a superb week.
Incredible 15-game winning streak at Villa Park
For the first time in our 149-year history, we’ve now won 15 consecutive home league games, with Unai Emery continuing to set records and take us to another level.
The Villa boss was bitterly disappointed and frustrated after we lost back-to-back home games to Leicester City and Arsenal last season, but we haven’t looked back since.
15 wins, 39 goals scored, just seven conceded, eight clean sheets and 45 points. We’ve made Villa Park a real fortress and a foundation of our success, let’s hope we can keep it going for the foreseeable future.
Emery’s management makes key difference
Aside from getting his starting line-ups and game plans spot on to get the desired results, Emery’s in-game management made all the difference too this weekend.
It was clear that tiredness was a key factor as we struggled to dictate and control proceedings as we like to, and so our substitutions were pivotal to adding freshness and protecting our lead.
Emery made the right decisions at the right times to get us over the line, keeping Arsenal at bay to secure back-to-back clean sheets and see off arguably the top two sides in the league.
Diego Carlos stepping up in defence
It’s taken time, but Diego Carlos is now solidifying his position in the heart of the Villa defence with a string of solid performances.
With his injury troubles hopefully well behind him, his physicality, tactical awareness and intelligence, composure in possession and discipline in effectively implementing our high-line strategy, have all made him a key figure.
Ezri Konsa deserves credit too as he has had to show versatility and impress at right-back despite looking so strong as a centre-half, but Carlos has added an important dynamic to our backline and deservedly earned the Player of the Match award from Sky Sports on Saturday.
McGinn puts in another monster performance
Fresh from playing a leading role in our win over Man City, the Villa skipper was at his influential best again in this one, but in a different way.
While he combined his tenacity and technical quality in midweek, he was required to show real grit and resolve in this one to helps us see out the victory.
Not only did he score the winning goal, but he continued to cover an incredible amount of ground right until the full-time whistle as he provided us with energy, combativeness and a driving force to get up the pitch and alleviate pressure.
Important not to get carried away with impressive start
While Emi Martinez was at his charismatic best after the game as he reiterated that he’s a ‘believer’ and wouldn’t play down if we’re in a title race, both Emery and McGinn were more pragmatic.
Given we’re only 16 games in, it arguably is sensible for now to simply take it a game at a time and perhaps focus on our top four aspirations rather than getting too carried away with title talk.
That said, as fans we’re certainly allowed to enjoy every minute of this and dream, while the players in-house at least will remain humble, with their feet on the ground and continue to work towards achieving something special this season. As Emery noted, if we’re still in this position after 30 odd games, then we can very much adjust our expectations and targets.
It will beg the question though the longer we maintain this, will we start having to prioritise the league or Europe, or have we got the squad to do both?
