Arsenal beat Aston Villa 1-0 as Bukayo Saka scores winner

The smile on Declan Rice’s face with six minutes of normal time remaining said it all. He had just shut down Ian Maatsen as the Aston Villa full-back zoomed into the box. Arsenal, for whom Bukayo Saka scored the only goal, were authoritative and seemingly took great satisfaction in keeping Villa at arm’s length.

Unai Emery’s work‑in‑progress side struggled to test 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 previous game, they trailed 4-0 and after 40 were down to 10 men.

Here they could take plenty of encouragement from a promising if not fruitless performance, the debutants Zion Suzuki and Nicolas Jackson impressing, having taken the No 1 and No 11 shirts vacated by Emiliano Martínez and Ollie Watkins respectively. Suzuki and Jackson were the only changes to Villa’s starting XI but they appeared far more cohesive. Suzuki’s eye for a pass was particularly noticeable, pinging 50-yard passes to George Hemmings, the 19-year-old who kept his place, and John McGinn within a few minutes of each other.

Emi Buendía smacked the crossbar after Boubacar Kamara overawed Christos Tzolis – Martin Ødegaard subsequently asked questions of the referee, Jarred Gillett – but Jackson otherwise created Villa’s best opening. The Senegal forward, who worked under Emery at Villarreal, pinched possession from Gabriel Magalhães a few yards into the Villa half and galloped into the other before sending a near-perfect cross in from the right. Hemmings burst into the six-yard box but was unable to convert. Villa are just the second team to fail to register a shot on target in their first two Premier League matches in a season since 2003-04, along with Swansea City in 2017-18.

This fixture last season ended in despair for Arsenal, their players splayed across the turf after Buendía’s 95th-minute winner with the last kick of the game. Arteta said that defeat still haunts him and reminded his players as much before this game. “That was still in my tummy and I spoke to my players about it, the image of the players on the floor, totally gutted,” the Arsenal manager said. “We used that [as inspiration].”

In that game last season Eberechi Eze was at fault for Matty Cash’s opener and was subsequently hooked at half-time. Here it was a case of role‑reversal, Eze shining after coming on for the second half in place of Christos Tzolis, who was booked after a foul on Cash and muted.

“I think he learnt a lesson,” Arteta said of Eze, who was involved in Arsenal seizing the lead approaching the hour. Arsenal slowed things down and then punished Villa for switching off. Cristhian Mosquera pushed a pass to Eze, who was afforded space by Cash, Villa’s defender concerned about an unmarked Riccardo Calafiori. Eze promptly spied Calafiori’s underlapping run and the Italian steered the ball across the six-yard box where Saka beat Maatsen to the punch and scrambled the cross into the net.

This is a new-look Villa, on and off the pitch. A handful of staff in hard hats were positioned in the closed North Stand moonlighting as ball boys; the corner of rubble between the remaining skeleton and the Trinity Road Stand remains akin to an excavation site. Ibrahim Mbaye, whose £47m move from Paris Saint‑Germain is to be announced on Tuesday, was in the directors’ box. Taylor Harwood-Bellis is also poised to sign in a £25m deal from Southampton. Six of Villa’s starting XI from their Europa League triumph may have departed but Emery has made no complaints and has relayed his no-excuses mantra to his squad. “We do not look backwards,” he said.

Villa’s frustrations were palpable. McGinn, in a hurry to get Villa level, was booked for wiping out Merino. Aaron Wan-Bissaka replaced Cash for his Villa debut and his first job was to stretch his legs to muffle an advancing Eze. Alejandro Garnacho entered in place of Ross Barkley. Arteta introduced Ezri Konsa for his debut, adding further steel.

Villa could not find a way through and Arsenal’s winning habit already appears ominous. “It is painful to lose,” Emery said. “But we can feel optimistic with how we competed.”