Well, I must say that at the end of the first half I thought that this post was going to be completely negative and be a complete criticism of the team and lack of skill that this current squad. But credit to the guys to get the job done even if it was not as comfortable as it maybe should have been.

A first half in which Arsenal did fairly well on the offensive side produced 2 goals, but for Aston Villa, a tale all too familiar for Arsenal fans.

Wenger

For much of this week Arsene Wenger was still facing his critics after the substitution decision in the Manchester United game. However, today’s game was the perfect example of why he is the manager of this club. After 2 first half goals, the Arsenal players were booed of the field at half. I don’t think the ‘boos’ were for the way that Arsenal had played, but more so because they were down 2 goals.

Of course, nobody but the players know what was said in the dressing room at half time, but whatever it was seemed to have completely lifted the spirits of the team as the performance in the second half was completely different and I for one was not expecting Arsenal to come out firing like they did.

Confidence

There is no question that 3 consecutive league defeats would kill the confidence of any team and can even send a team into a downward spiral. It seemed as though Arsenal were not far from that spiral, and that things could get a lot worse before they could get better. Although it has been a while since Arsenal have played a solid 90 minutes of football, this match can certainly give the team the confidence it needs to put some wins together.

The next couple of weeks in the Premier League will be massive for Arsenal to try and get back into the top four, and restore confidence in the team, similar to what it was in earlier in the season.

Penalties

It has been no secret that Arsenal has been on the wrong side of penalty calls this year, not receiving any calls in their favor. However, today Arsenal drew 2 penalty calls which, to be fair, were both legitimate calls and in no way tainted the match.

MOTM

It would be easy to look at RVP’s 2 goal performance today and say that he is the man of the match but I think that Aaron Ramsey should be today’s Arsenal Latest MOTM. Although Ramsey did not get on score sheet today, he certainly has bounced back from a couple of average performances over the last couple of weeks and took on a more attacking role in the as he was instrumental in moving attacks forward today and even drawing the first penalty, which RVP made no mistake on.

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