Villa sank to defeat once again this weekend after goals from Olivier Giroud and Aaraon Ramsey set up an easy Arsenal win.
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The Arsenal stopper kept his 169th Premier League clean sheet on Sunday as the Gunners shut out Aston Villa, winning 2-0 in the Midlands to go top of the table. We have eight days to prepare. Since then, they have set two unwanted club records of 15 league games – and nine home matches – without a win, while also changing their manager, bringing in Garde to try and save their season.
At Villa Park, Giroud sent Brad Guzan the wrong way from the penalty spot in the eighth minute after Alan Hutton was penalised for holding back Theo Walcott, which gave the France striker his 50th Arsenal league goal.
That followed following his hat-trick heroics in Greece last week that saw the Gunners qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League.
Little wonder Wenger described the player as being “at the top of his game” as he lavished more praise on him afterwards.
“Finally the numbers get people to realise he is a good player”.
There are those matches but there are also others like the one here, and in that crucial victory against Olympiakos, when Giroud shows his worth to Arsenal as a classic centre-forward, one of the few left at the highest echelons of European football and who since arriving from Montpellier in 2012 has done that most of important of things for a goalscorer – score goals.
“But he’s a very efficient and an important player for this team”.
Ramsey won the ball himself in the middle of the park, and Villa couldn’t keep up as Ozil carried the ball forward, and with the goal gaping, the German unselfishly squared for Ramsey to tap home.
“I was a bit anxious today as we had given a lot on Wednesday and came back very, very late on Thursday morning”, Wenger explained.
“We created chances, made a ideal goal, then conceded those two”, said Klopp. We know that. I see that more as an opportunity than a problem.
Remi Garde pocketed a Premier League winner’s medal as a player with Arsenal in 1998 and enjoyed a successful stint with Lyon in Ligue 1 but his Villa players are in a huge battle battle to emerge from the relegation zone.
“It’s not completely a lost cause yet”.
“But I was happy with the way we reacted in the second half after making the worst possible start by going behind inside 10 minutes in such a game”.
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He said: “Let’s see tomorrow, if Leicester beat Chelsea they have a very good chance to be top at Christmas. Obviously, I did a job for the manager, which he asked me to do at the end of last season and, hopefully, I can get back in there, stay fit and healthy and have a good year”.
