Yesterday was fantastic entertainment and truly a game of two halves. The first was a footballing masterpiece by The Gunners, the second, we were on the back foot and defending the one goal lead with everything we had. It was a bit tense to watch, but we came out with the win and fair play to the lads for holding up a strong Aston Villa side.

My day started at 10 to 9, when I’d missed my alarm and had 10 minutes to get ready and out the door. Fuck. Anyway I made it down to Arsenal in time to meet my mate for the journey up to Villa. It was a nice morning and I had a good feeling about the game. However the closer we got to Birmingham, the thicker the clouds got. It was quite strange. We finally made it to the pub for lunch after getting lost several times round those stupid one-way roads.

We sat in the pub all afternoon, getting updates from the Chelsea’s game and sharing hilarious stories from the trip to Seville in the week. Then the inevitable happened, Chelsea scored from an offside goal that wasn’t flagged in a game where West Ham completely dominated. You just knew it.

We started making our way up to the ground about 4 (getting lost once) and found our way to our seats. I was in the 4th row, in line with the six-yard box. Decent seat if Arsenal are attacking that end but that didn’t really happen…

We started with nearly the team I predicted; Hleb and Clichy were fit and Eduardo lost his place in that team for Eboue with Hleb behind Ade. We got off to a good start and were putting the pressure on Villa. We were knocking the ball round well and forcing Scott “England’s, England’s no.1″ Carson into action. It appears he can actually stop a football when he’s not wearing a national shirt.

However, it was Villa that opened the scoring in the 14th minute. Unlike himself, Flamini gave the ball away in midfield and the home side broke away. Carew took the ball down the left and crossed in, Toure deflected the cross which made it difficult for Gallas to defend; he managed to get a head on it but it was straight into the path of Gardner who had the simple task of slotting it in the back of the net.

The Villa fans went mad for a few minutes but our goal only came 10 minutes after theirs, which shut them up. Eboue swung in a dangerous cross into a busy area, someone got a touch (think it was Rosicky) and it rolled out to Flamini who reacted on the edge of the box with a screamer past everyone. It was a great goal and Matty went mad, you could see he wanted that goal.

We were well and truly on top now. Chances were coming and the build up play was fantastic. A good example of this was our second in the 36th minute. Some great one-touch football ended up with Hleb getting the ball on the right hand corner of the box who did well to get the ball to Sagna whist being fouled by Gareth Barry but the ref waved play on, about the only good decision he made all night. Sagna played a great cross in to Adebayor who had two defenders around him but he seemed to hang in the air for about 5 minutes before nicely heading it in.

2-1 Arsenal and it looked like we could score for fun. The Villa fans were silent, despite what you might’ve heard of the TV. They didn’t particularly like the chants of, “Have you ever seen England play like this?” and “You need more foreigners, you need more foreigners!”.

Before the whistle went for half time Flamini had a couple more good efforts and Diarra had a good chance but we were happy with the 2-1 lead at the break, with the belief that we could make it comfortable in the second half. However it was a different story.

It was clear what Martin O’Neill had said in half time: Don’t give them space, close down every pass, don’t make them feel comfortable on the ball and pie pressure on the defence with balls whipped in from the wings. It did the job and we never really got back into the game. Over the course of the second half they hit the bar, post and Almunia made a few very good saves in front of Lehmann on the bench who it now appears has refused to warm up with Manuel before the game.

We must’ve had three chances going forward in the second half. Every time we got the ball we were closed down and every time Almunia cleared the ball after an attack Villa won the header. My brother told me that our possession in the first half was about 75% but overall in the game we only managed 45% of it. Incredible.

One of those times when we broke through it was stopped with a terrible challenge by Carew on Hleb. Alex won the ball and was advancing forward on the counter attack. However Carew was tracking back and after realising he wasn’t going to get anywhere near the ball he just took Hleb out with a sliding tackle from behind. The referee gave him a yellow but I don’t think a red would’ve been harsh. Hleb limped off to be replaced by Walcott but I think Alex will be ok; he just needed to walk it off. Theo came in on the left and never made any impact on the game, I don’t know what was wrong, but he did nothing.

Aston Villa continued to pressure us but we managed to hold on. Adebayor looked absolutely knackered up front and was replaced by Bendtner in injury time. We had one last final chance when Walcott got through and the defender slipped, but Theo slipped too. If he stayed on his feet then I’m pretty sure that would’ve been a goal.

Anyway, it didn’t matter as the game finished 2-1. We had to hang on but I think we deserved that win, I dunno, and I don’t care. 3 points, 5 clear at the top. Wonderful.

Then it was the long walk back to the car, one more pint then the drive home down the M1. A great day out and I’m going to try to get to more away games if I can.

Next up is Newcastle away on Wednesday, build up to come. Thanks for reading.