Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal – 14/03/07 – (Barclays Premiership) 15 March, 2007

Well on paper we’ve put a terrible period for Arsenal behind us. However, if you managed to watch the game we were absolutely terrible. Our makeshift back four were shocking and gave Villa countless chances. Lehmann was near by to cut out through-balls on a couple of occasions and really we were very lucky not to concede. On the other hand we should’ve got about three. Aliadiere missed two absolute sitters in the first half.

We took an early lead in the 10th minute. The goal goes down as Abou Diaby’s but it was it was only his wicked deflection that sent Baptista’s shot into the back of the net. Diaby had the ball out on the left wing and cut inside giving the ball to Baptista. Abou carried on his run into the area but The Beast found himself in space and had a shot, it was going well wide but luckily it hit Diaby on his way into the box and went in past the stranded Sorensen. 1-0 up in 10 minutes, you thought there might be something special on but if you were actually watching the game the goal suited it very well.

We had quite a few chances in the first half, not long after the goal Aliadiere got into the box well for a one-on-one but his low side-footed shot was saved well. Midway through the first half Villa had a decent penalty shout when Djourou brought down Carew. In the end the referee decided the challenge was just outside the area, the replay showed he was 100% correct. Djourou was rightly yellow-carded for the challenge but it could’ve been a lot worse.

The next best chance came just before half time when Ljungberg’s cross found Aliadiere unmarked 5 yards out. It was a nice move by Arsenal and Freddie whipped in a perfect cross from the right. Aliadiere was right in front of goal with no challenging defender, all he had to do was get it on target and it was a goal. Jeremie somehow managed to miss, heading the ball into the ground and over the bar. We should’ve gone in at half time 2-0 up with that chance but with the opportunities we’d gifted to Villa you might argue we were lucky to still be in the lead.

Villa came out looking much stronger in the second half and were piling the pressure on our terrible defence. We were quite lucky, most of the time it was a last second interception before a Villa striker was through on goal and Lehmann was called into action on a few occasions. We were terrible, truly awful. The Arsenal.com match report reads “Gallas and Gilberto had been immense all evening.” I’m not really sure which game they were watching.

Towards the end Aston Villa were committing players forward and we nearly caught them on the break but it wasn’t to be. There were more chances in the second 45 but nothing really like the first half and in the end we hung on for the 1-0 win.

There were some okay performances. Lehmann did his job I suppose even though he looked quite dodgy on occasion especially picking the ball out the air from crosses. Diaby was quite good; nothing special but he wasn’t too bad. Ljungberg was probably our overall man of the match, got around the pitch well and did his stuff. Rosicky looked threatening when he came on but was never really more than that.

As I said at the beginning, on paper this is a great result, on the television screen it was a completely different story. However, it’s 3 points, and that’s all I wanted. We will have players back for our next game against Everton on Sunday and Wenger will be looking for a much better performance at Goodison Park.

I’m going away again, there won’t be any updates on the site until Monday. I’m sure you’ll mange. See you next week.