Key events
72 min: Amadou Onana takes one for the team and is booked for an illegal lunge on Bukayo Saka, who was trying to escape down the right flank on a counter-attack.
72 min: Villa corner. Leon Bailey’s delivery is poor and the ball is cleared at the near post by Declan Rice.
70 min: Saka did superbly to chase an apparent lost cause, prevent the ball from going out of play and pull it back into the Villa penalty area. Havertz and Rogers tussled for the ball, which found its way to Trossard, who made no mistake with his first time shot from about 12 yards.
GOAL! Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal (Trossard 68)
Arsenal lead: Just on as a substitute in place of Martinelli, Leandro Trossard fires home a heroic Bukayo Saka pull-back from the byline that was – perhaps inadvertently – helped on its way into his path by Havertz, who was tussling for the ball with Morgan Rogers.
66 min: Villa double-substitution: Jhon Duran and Jacob Ramsey replace Ollie Watkins and John McGinn. If Villa don’t win this match, Watkins won’t get a wink of sleep this evening after those two misses.
64 min: Bukayo Saka dawdles over a shot after being played in behind by Odegaard, tries to take the ball around Martinez and a half-chance goes begging. I think he was offside when Odegaard played the ball his way.
63 min: A Villa Park crowd that spent long periods of the first half fast asleep have the scent of blood in their nostrils and are roaring their team on. Arsenal are looking vulnerable.
61 min: Morgan Rogers, who has been superb for Villa, shrugs off challenges from Rice and Martinelli before sending a low, weak shot wide of the far upright. It takes a nick on its way wide and Villa have a corner. Arsenal clear, but only as far as Nedejkovic, who is forced backwards.
59 min: Gabriel has been booked for a late challenge on Onana, who has just headed over the bar after making a late run from deep into the Arsenal box.
57 min: Watkins cannot believe he hasn’t scored and almost certainly would have if he’d steered his header towards either corner. The thing is, I think he thought scoring was a mere formality if he got his header on target, as he thought Raya was out of the game.
55 min: Wow!!! An Amadou Onana shot from outside the penalty area takes a wicked deflection, loops up in the air and cannons off the cross-bar. Ollie Watkins dives to send the rebound past Raya with his head, but the Arsenal goalkeeper, who had been on the floor after trying to save the original shot, somehow gets back to his feet and denies the Villa striker with a world class save. That is brilliant goalkeeping.
53 min: Pau Torres plays something of a hospital pass to John McGinn just outside the Villa penalty area and the Villa skipper is lucky enough to be fouled by Thomas Partey, who had pounced and was trying to dispossess him.
50 min: Arsenal are completely dominating possession in the early stages of this second half but struggling to break down their hosts, who are defending obdurately. Martin Odegaard is the latest Arsenal player to run down a dead end after looking up and seeing no available options.
47 min: For appearances sake, Declan Rice jogs in pursuit of a long ball from deep that’s massively overhit and sails straight to Emiliano Martinez. The Arsenal No41 was never going to get near it.
Second half: Aston Villa 0-0 Arsenal
46 min: Arsenal get the second half under way and it is to be hoped both teams will show more quality in this second half. Neither have been particularly bad but both sides have been far from their best.
Clarification: Leon Bailey didn’t literally break his neck getting back to make that key clearance. The Villa winger seems fine, despite a different injury scare.
A tweet: Dan Bardell, a Villa fan and valued member of the Football Weekly podcast squad, has this to say …
Good half from #AVFC, the better team for me.
Rogers is wonderful, I love Tielemans and Onana just gives us a bit more stability in midfield.
My favourite part of half was Bailey breaking his neck to get back and making a key clearance. Growth in his game under Emery is superb.…
— Dan Bardell (@danbardell) August 24, 2024
An email: “Notoriously pro-London as Guardian coverage generally is, perhaps, just perhaps Villa will get some fairer coverage this season,” writes Chris, who clearly didn’t take the time to read any of the largely fawning coverage afforded to Villa in the Guardian and most other British media outlets last season, but still feels qualified to complain about it.
Aston Villa 0-0 Arsenal
Half-time: An extremely scrappy half that won’t live long in the memory of anyone involved in it apart from Ollie Watkins draws to a close. The deadlock remains unbroken, due in no small part to an inexplicable miss from the Aston Villa striker.
45+5 min: Saka is fouled by Onana as he tries to turn, prompting Mikel Arteta to lose the plot with the fourth official because the Villa midfielder didn’t get booked. The Arsenal manager gets a ticking-off from referee Michael Oliver.
45+3 min: Declan Rice is booked for an agricultual challenge on Morgan Rogers, who is causing Arsenal all sorts of problems on the edge of the final third. He’s been a constant menace for Aston Villa.
45+2 min: Onana heads a Martinelli dink from the left into the Villa penalty area clear.
45 min: Youri Tielemans gives the ball away to Declan Rice in midfield as the fourth official reveals there’ll be six minutes of added time. I won’t lie, I thought there’d be more.
43 min: Morgan Rogers tries his luck from distance but his shot cannons off the legs of Watkins, who had played the ball to his feet in the first instance and was sprinting through the Arsenal penalty area on a decoy run. The ball breaks to Bailey, who tries to curl a shot into the top corner but can only send it sailing into the gloves of Raya.
40 min: Running across the face of his own six-yard box with the ball at his feet, Torres is challenged by Havertz, who trods heavily on his foot. The Villa defender just about manages to get the ball back to Martinez before going to ground clutching his instep. He’ll live.
39 min: Martinelli tries to square the ball across the Villa penalty area from the left after running on to a lovely pass in behind by Rice. It’s blocked by Pau Torres and put out for a corner before it can reach the near post.
34 min: McGinn smashes a loose ball into the midrift of Saliba, who was lying on the ground after a tussle for the ball with Watkins down by the corner flag. There’s a bit of a flare-up between the pair but Michael Oliver calms them down without feeling the need to produce any yellow cards.
33 min: Bailey is on hand to intercept a low, inaccurate Havertz cross into the Villa penalty area that threatened to find its way to Saka.
32 min: John McGinn dives in to try to dispossess Saliba out by the touchline and knocks the wind out of the Arsenal defender. It was a robust challenge but also a fair one.
31 min: William Saliba steps out to intercept a dangerous Morgan Rogers pull-back towards Leon Bailey and clear Arsenal’s lines. Good defending.
30 min: Half an hour in and this game still hasn’t really got going but Aston Villa should be ahead after squandering that glorious scoring opportunity.
29 min: The camera cuts to Watkins, who chooses that exact moment to evacuate the contents of his nose with a couple of high velocity snot-rockets.
28 min: It’s difficult to believe Watkins missed that opportunity to fire his side ahead. He shaped to shoot and sent David Raya the wrong way, only to see his effort roll the wrong side of the upright. If anything, Clive, he had too much time to think about what he was doing.
25 min: Oh my! A mistake from Gabriel allows Morgan Rogers to burst into the Arsenal penalty area and square the ball for a completely unmarked Ollie Watkins. With the Arsenal goal gaping and only David Raya to beat, he sidefoots the ball several yards wide of the left upright. That’s a shocking miss.
24 min: There’s another short break in play as Declan Rice fiddles with a rogue contact lens and slides it back into place under the supervision of referee Michael Oliver.
23 min: This game kicked off late and has been very stop-start for various reasons. Arsenal are marginally on top but the match has yet to settle down and find any kind of rhythm.
