Despondent Gunners fans reacted with a mixture of confusion and anger to Sunday night’s unexpected 3-0 defeat to Dean Smith’s in-form Aston Villa side with a Bukayo Saka own goal and Ollie Watkins brace securing the three points.<\/p>\n
The Gunners were hoping for a fourth straight win in all competitions after thumping Dundalk by the same scoreline in the Europa League on Thursday night, preceded by a landmark win at Manchester United on Sunday, for it was the first time since 2006 that they had won at Old Trafford in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, victory was far from their grasp as they failed to back up their early performances and succumbed to a regalvanised, magnificent Villa side who obvously found their stunning form after back-to-back defeats to Leeds United and Southampton at Villa Park.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were immediately put on the back foot from the first minute, when John McGinn\u00a0saw a goal harshly ruled out for offside against Ross Barkley.<\/p>\n
Villa continued to pile on the pressure and were not perturbed by the McGinn offside ruling with Mahmoud Trezeguet forcing Bukayo Saka into an own goal before half-time.<\/p>\n
This was followed up with Ollie Watkins\u2019 brace to secure the win for Villa and got them back on song ahead of the international break.<\/p>\n
The claret and blue faithful were merrily buzzing, but definitely not their Arsenal counterparts.<\/p>\n
“Worst performance under Arteta by a country mile,” one fan said. “Terrible attack, missing midfield and defense carved open again and again.”<\/p>\n
Another added: “An absolute joke! Well done to Villa, they played well! We were shambolic and two games in a row lost at home.”<\/p>\n
“Shocking!” a third said. “We don’t look like scoring any more. Arteta needs to change something. I’ve not been angry after a game in a long time! Today was just a joke!”<\/p>\n
“Really need to figure out what went wrong because this was tragic,” another added: “No creativity whatsover.”<\/p>\n
“I’m so upset,” a fifth fan said.<\/p>\n
Hey, that\u2019s football, mates!<\/p>\n
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