🎯 The main takeaway: Not pretty, but a professional three points
One of the themes of the early part of the season has been that possession has been eschewed by teams that have won but that wasn’t the case here today. Arsenal had over 60% possession here and this wasn’t a game state driven one given that it was 0-0 until nearly the 60th minute.
Looking at the rolling graphic, even after the went up in this match, they continued to have a larger share of the possession and used it as a way to keep control.
This isn’t really the how teams have played this season. Only Manchester City and Arsenal are sitting in the upper right corner here for teams with high possession and having a perfect 6 point start.
There was perhaps a false dawn that Arsenal would be able to turn into a free flowing team after Coventry. I do believe that we will see more and better attacking metrics this season for Arsenal (as long as they can stay somewhat healthy) but this isn’t a team that is going to give up control and the ability to strangle an opponent to death just because everyone else in the Premier League can’t defend.
Arsenal proved that you can win the league playing that way and they might just try and prove that it wasn’t a fluke.
Villa Park is a tough place for Arsenal to win and a professional/mature performance is never one to looked too far down upon.
