Aston Villa left the Emirates reeling after a 4-1 defeat that left manager Unai Emery drawing a line under the evening with a quick exit. When the final whistle sounded, Emery headed down the tunnel without finding Mikel Arteta first and later offered a measured explanation to the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but it\u2019s simple,\u201d the 54-year-old told Sky Sports. \u201cYou can watch. After [finishing] the match, always my routine is quick, shake hands and go with my coaches, with my players, or go to the dressing room.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I was waiting, I was waiting. Of course, he was happy and he was with his coaches and I decided to go inside. But for me, no problem. I can\u2019t wait, it was cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta said everything was \u201cgood\u201d between the managers and described Emery\u2019s swift exit as \u201cpart of the game\u201d and \u201cnot an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The evening\u2019s defining moment arrived early in the second half. In the 48th minute Gabriel rose to meet Bukayo Saka\u2019s delivery from the corner flag and, in the scramble that followed, struck goalkeeper Emiliano Mart\u00ednez with a trailing elbow. Mart\u00ednez fumbled the ball as it fell into the net and later used social media to press his case.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez posted a photo of the sequence with the caption, \u201cThe best team won today. We [are] still in [a] good position for the second part of the season.\u201d He added \u201celbow allow\u201d to the end of the post. Gabriel responded by liking the photo.<\/p>\n
The defeat was Aston Villa\u2019s first since Nov. 1. Despite the margin, Villa begin the new year in third place in the Premier League, trailing Arsenal by six points. The result leaves room for reflection for Emery and a reminder that fine details, including decisions in the penalty area, can shape a match\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emery left the Emirates quickly after Villa’s 4-1 defeat; Mart\u00ednez questioned the opening goal. amid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,711,172],"tags":[826,1215],"class_list":["post-5576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-aston-villa","category-epl","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5576","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=5576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}