Never mind the opponent, this was beyond poor. Villa was soundly thrashed 3-0 at the Emirates by an in form Arsenal side that could probably not believe how easy it was.
In the first 35 minutes Ireland, Herd, Petrov (twice), Cuellar, Albrighton and Collins had all been guilty of casually giving the ball away between the Villa area and the half-way line. It was amazing they weren’t further behind than 2 at the break.
Villa gifted all three goals. Petrov sloppily allowed GIBBS to beat him and two other Villa defenders, turn and then hit a shot straight at Given, who could not get a strong hand on the ball. Cuellar, played a poor pass that Song lifted back over the out of position defender and WALCOTT beautifully took the pass and slipped it past Given.
Petrov was a stranger throughout the game, not involved except for a nasty foul on Arteta. Albrighton had great opportunities, but wasted almost everything he touched. His crosses were appalling. Heskey spent the game beating the Arsenal defender to a pulp. Fine if this had been Ultimate fighting championships, but not very useful in football. Given did okay, but he’s not great. He palmed a shot from Walcott straight to Sagna who could have passed across the goal rather than shoot. He makes none of those heroic saves that we got a couple of seasons ago from Friedel. I think a Championship keeper would have done as good out there as he this afternoon. At half-time I would have taken Albrighton off and warned Petrov and Heskey they had 10 minutes to prove they belonged out there.
When Weimann finally arrived, he looked much livelier than Heskey and Villa actually got closer to Arsenal’s goal. The Austrian needs to get the ruthless streak of a Van Persie. The Arsenal leader would never have passed from 4 yds out. That ball would have been on the goal and Gabby and Gardner could have fought for the rebound if on.
Villa players started going in the ref’s notebook at will. Warnock had a shock when the ref pulled out a red card by mistake. The ref saw the humour in his mistake. However there was no humour when he neglected to book Song for dragging down Albrighton, his 3rd foul, too.
Villa’s final booking was Gardner. ARTETA dispatched the kick beautifully in the back of the net. No championship keeper was saving that one either.
Villa is in big trouble now as the bottom teams are starting to pick up points. If Alex has no more ideas than this, we can kiss our Premier status goodbye.