Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal: Saka settles a game of seven shots

Arsenal closed matchday 2 on Monday night at Villa Park and won it with the only clear chance either side produced. Bukayo Saka scored on 59 minutes, Aston Villa finished the evening without a single shot on target, and the visitors go second.

Seven shots each. That is the number that describes the game better than the scoreline does. This was not a siege broken by a late goal; it was ninety minutes in which almost nothing was created at either end, and one side happened to convert the one moment that was.

How the two sides arrived

Aston Villa came into it having been beaten 4-0 at Brighton on the opening weekend, comfortably the heaviest defeat of the first round. A week of questions followed, and Monday night was the first chance to answer any of them in front of their own crowd.

Arsenal had beaten Coventry City 3-0 at home, a straightforward evening against a promoted side that told nobody very much. They arrived with three points, a clean sheet already banked, and the luxury of playing last in the round, knowing exactly what a win was worth.

The goal

It came on 59 minutes and it came from close range. Riccardo Calafiori worked the ball across and Saka finished right-footed from very close in, into the bottom left corner. There was nothing elaborate about it — a ball into the six-yard area and a forward in the right place, which after an hour of very little was enough.

Villa had no reply, and the shape of the last half hour told you they were not likely to find one. The home side pushed bodies forward without ever working the ball into a position from which anyone could shoot cleanly.

Seven shots each

Arsenal finished with 60.8% of the ball, seven shots and two on target. Villa had 39.2%, seven shots and none on target. Two teams generating identical volume, and one of them putting nothing at all on the goalkeeper.

It is the second time in this round that a side has gone a full ninety minutes without testing the goalkeeper — Fulham managed the same at Sunderland on Sunday. In both cases the side that did it had come forward regularly and finished nothing, which is a more troubling pattern than being pinned back would be.

Arsenal won four corners to Villa two, and the foul count is the other number worth sitting with: seventeen from the home side against six from the visitors. That is the split of a team chasing a game it cannot get into, and it went with four yellow cards across the evening.

An away performance with nothing wasted

Arsenal did not dominate this match and did not need to. Six fouls across ninety minutes is a remarkably low figure for a side playing away from home in a fixture of this size, and it points at a team that was rarely out of position badly enough to have to stop anyone illegally.

They took seven shots and hit the target twice, which is not a performance anybody will replay for pleasure. But it is the second consecutive week they have kept a clean sheet, and a side that concedes nothing needs very little at the other end. Saka has now scored in a match his team won by a single goal, which is the kind of contribution that decides where a season finishes rather than how it looks.

What Villa have to fix

Two matches, five goals conceded, none scored, and no points. On the opening weekend they were taken apart by Brighton; here they were not outplayed so much as unable to produce anything, which is a different problem and in some ways a harder one to diagnose.

Thirty-six thousand people watched their side have as many attempts as the visitors and not force a save. The chances are being reached and then wasted somewhere in the final pass, and a side with this squad will not accept that explanation for long.

Jarred Gillett had a busy evening by the standards of a game with one goal in it, which is what seventeen fouls from one team tends to produce.

Where it leaves them

Arsenal are second with six points and a goal difference of plus four, level on both with Manchester City and separated only by the tie-breaks beneath. Two matches, two wins, two clean sheets and four goals scored. It is the least dramatic perfect start in the division and, at this stage of a season, probably the most valuable kind.

Aston Villa are nineteenth. No points, no goals, minus five, and level on all three with Crystal Palace and Tottenham at the foot of the table. The fixture list will not stay this unkind, but the first fortnight has produced nothing to build on.

That completes matchday 2. Manchester City, Arsenal, Hull City and Chelsea all sit on six points, three of the twenty clubs have yet to score, and a promoted side is third. Two weeks in, the table already looks nothing like anyone drew it in August.