sport news Arsenal looked scared to win as hope gave way to fear, writes IAN LADYMAN as ... trends now
The really worrying thing about this for Arsenal, the thing that will have kept their supporters awake last night, is that Mikel Arteta’s team suddenly looked scared to win.
Teams play badly. Mistakes are made. Chances are missed. It happens all this time. But when teams play like Arsenal did here, just as they find themselves in sight of a glorious push through the finishing line, then it tends to hint at something deeper and more significant. It tends to hint at psychological weakness.
That’s a notion that Arteta’s players must dispel quickly and before it takes root. They are in Munich with a Champions League quarter-final locked at 2-2 on Wednesday night. That would be a very good place to start their recovery.
The story of this afternoon was simple. Arsenal, handed an opportunity to turn a three-horse race in to a straight fight with Manchester City after Liverpool’s home defeat to Crystal Palace, were absolutely fine in the first half. They didn’t score but they played well enough. The dominated the ball and the territory and created a couple of very good opportunities that they narrowly failed to take.
But then, sometime between the end of the first period and the start of the second, something changed. It was as though a different set of players emerged from the dressing room for the second 45 minutes.
Ollie Watkins scored a sublime goal to help Aston Villa seal a 2-0 victory against Arsenal
It was a dismal defeat for Arsenal who missed the opportunity to go top of the Premier League
Mikel Arteta demanded his players respond 'with character and leadership' after the match
Arsenal have been in such good form recently but here a cloak of confidence worn so effortlessly during a flawless run of victories and clean sheets fell to the ground as quickly as the sun can disappear behind a cloud. And when the darkness came, it stayed.
Fear. There it was. Anxiety. That, too. You could see it on their faces and in their body language and in their football. Forward passes became sideways ones. Ambition morphed into caution. Hope became fear.
And, by the time the Emirates had emptied in added time, all Arsenal’s deepest worries had come surging back to the surface.
It’s only one bad result. The Premier League table still offers hope. It’s all very tight up there. But the truth is that, in the second half, Arsenal were worse than Liverpool had been against Palace. Liverpool, for all their own problems, had kept pushing against Palace. There was something calamitous and vaguely comedic about their finishing.
Arsenal? They created hardly a chance during a second half that Villa dominated. By the end it was Villa pushing for more goals. After falling behind with six minutes left, Arsenal never once looked liked rescuing so much as a point.
Earlier it had indeed been different. When Arteta lifted his arms at the crowd towards the end of the opening half, it seemed a little unnecessary. The home fans had been supportive and calm and their team’s football had been similarly purposeful.
After neither side could take the lead, Leon Bailey scored the opener with a driving low strike
The 26-year-old came on as a substitute to score his ninth Premier League goal of the season
Martin Odegaard was the game’s best player, but his frustrations were visible during the match
Villa hadn’t been in the game in the first half. Ollie Watkins had struck the base of the post in the 39th minute but that had been on the back of a rare raid and indeed a mistake by Arsenal defender Gabriel. It was an outlier moment, nothing more.
Arsenal had played all the football. Martin Odegaard, sitting deep in the orbit of Declan Rice, was the game’s best player.
His passing, especially in to the feet of Kai Havertz, was impeccable. On the right side Bukayo Saka seemed to have the number of Villa defender Lucas Digne and it looked as though a goal
