Arsenal produced a decisive second-half display to record a 4-1 victory over Aston Villa on Tuesday. The clearance of fortune arrived immediately after the break when Emiliano Mart\u00ednez blundered, allowing Gabriel to turn home what was his third goal of the season in all competitions. Four minutes later Mart\u00edn Zubimendi doubled the lead, with Martin \u00d8degaard supplying the pass that set up the Spaniard\u2019s composed finish.<\/p>\n
Leandro Trossard extended the advantage with a low drive from the left and then created the fourth, teeing up substitute Gabriel Jesus for his first Gunners goal in almost a year. Ollie Watkins grabbed a stoppage-time consolation for Villa, but it did little to change the result as Arsenal moved five points clear of second-placed Manchester City.<\/p>\n
The return of Gabriel and Jurri\u00ebn Timber to the starting lineup lifted spirits after news of Declan Rice\u2019s absence. Timber provided attacking reinforcement down the right and notched an assist on his return to the team. Gabriel caused problems at set pieces and defended resolutely before being withdrawn late with what Arsenal will hope is cramp.<\/p>\n
David Raya produced an outstanding stop in stoppage time to deny John McGinn from close range, and the goalkeeper\u2019s save was the only action that forced him into an intervention until that moment. Mikel Merino delivered an energetic midfield display but was fortunate to avoid a second yellow card for a cynical pull before the hour.<\/p>\n
Viktor Gy\u00f6keres underwhelmed for Villa, squandering promising headed opportunities and gifting an early chance to the hosts with weak hold-up play. Arsenal\u2019s bench had an impact: Christian N\u00f8rgaard (73\u2019 for Merino), Gabriel Jesus (77\u2019 for Gy\u00f6keres), Myles Lewis-Skelly (77\u2019 for Gabriel), Ben White (83\u2019 for Timber) and Noni Madueke (83\u2019 for Saka) entered the match. Subs not used were Kepa Arrizabalaga, Eberechi Eze, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz.<\/p>\n
Arsenal finished the year in style, the second-half shift proving the difference as Mikel Arteta\u2019s side strengthened their position at the Premier League summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal produced a dominant second-half to beat Aston Villa 4-1, moving five points clear at the top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,711,172],"tags":[1162,826,606],"class_list":["post-5542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-aston-villa","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-christian-norgaard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}