Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 2: Bent brace bags the spoils

Hands up if you saw that result coming. Hey. You there are the back… put your hand down, you little fibber!

Well, okay, Arsenal have really gone off the boil as this season has lumbered to its conclusion, but I can’t honestly claim to have expected a win today. A draw perhaps. I’d have been delighted with the point that would have finally guaranteed our Premier League survival regardless of other results. Three is exceptionally welcome.

And we can thank Darren Bent.

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Teamsheets: Arsenal vs Aston Villa

It’s the last away game of the season. Here’s the team Gary McAllister is sending out at the Emirates to grab a point or three against an Arsenal side eager to ensure they finish in the top three at least to guarantee themselves a place in the Champions League next season.

Should be interesting tactical battle, it looks like a 4-2-3-1 vs a 4-3-3.

Arsenal
Aston Villa

53
Wojciech Szczęsny
1
Brad Friedel

3
Bacary Sagna
36
Kyle Walker

5
Thomas Vermaelen
29
James Collins

18
Sebastien Squillaci
5
Richard Dunne

28
Kieran Gibbs
2
Luke Young

17
Alex Song
16
Fabian Delph

19
Jack Wilshere
19
Stiliyan Petrov

14
Theo Walcott
20
Nigel Reo-Coker

16
Aaron

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Flashback: Arsenal 5 Aston Villa 0 – April 3rd 1991 – Platt takes over from Spinks

I wouldn’t normally want to drag up old batterings from the past, but this game at Highbury contained a slightly unusual incident. With the game at 4-0, Nigel Spink was injured in a challenge with Kevin Campbell – interesting to note Brian Moore’s keenness to exonerate Campbell of any blame, not sure that would be the case with a similar tackle today – and without a substitute goalkeeper available, David Platt takes over between the sticks.

Campbell and Alan Smith

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Statshack – Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 0

Statistically speaking, this game closely resembles the three victories over Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd. The one major detail that differs significantly is the scoreline of course.

Villa presented little threat to Almunia’s goal in the second half, but it was certainly more a case of Arsenal eventually making their chances pay after the break and there will be little argument about who can be credited with that fact.

It’s not often that a single player comes off the bench to

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Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 0

The headlines for this game will rightly belong to Cesc Fabregas after his 26 minute cameo performance was enough to put Aston Villa to the sword and deny us a grand slam of victories over big four teams. In fairness though, Villa weren’t exactly setting the world on fire when the Spaniard stepped on the pitch with just over half an hour to go and a victory didn’t appear likely. When the Spaniard left the pitch with 6

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Arsenal vs Aston Villa Pre-Smack From Andy Brown

ABthegiant is back with another Pre-Smack video prior to the game against Arsenal. All being well he’ll be following up with another gloating video.

“Don’t make me pull out my gunners!! I’ve got gunners!! I’m armed and dangerous!!” Nice work again, Andy.