Saka settles gruelling battle with Aston Villa to extend Arsenal’s winning start
Saka settles gruelling battle with Aston Villa to extend Arsenal’s winning start. The smile on Declan Rice’s face a few minutes from time said it all.
The smile on Declan Rice’s face a few minutes from time said it all. The Arsenal midfielder had just shut down Ian Maatsen as the Aston Villa full-back zoomed into the box.
Arsenal were hardly imperious, Bukayo Saka scoring the only goal, but Unai Emery’s side struggled to hurt the champions , David Raya untroubled. The records will show Villa have lost their first two league matches of a season without scoring for the first time since 2002 but, despite successive defeats, this time there was no capitulation.
For Villa, this was a marked improvement on defeat at Brighton in their opener. After 31 minutes in their last game , they trailed 4-0 and after 40 were down to 10 men.