Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 0

By Myles Palmer

Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 0

Fabregas 65, Fabregas 81, Diaby 91

Martin O'Neill bottled it.

And Arsenal played their best second half of this season.

Let's face it, Aston Villa are still a team of journeymen who have been having a good run of results. As always, O'Neill was too cautious.

The best way to beat Arsenal is to hustle and press and deny them the ball, as Phil Brown and Roy Hodgson have shown.
But Villa went to the Emirates and did what teams should never do : they let the home team have the ball and find their rhythm. Even so, Arsenal were very poor without Fabregas or a striker in the first half. Eduardo and Nasri were passengers and it was 0-0 at the interval.

Before the game I thought Fabregas would start whether he was fit or not. That was wrong. At half-time I thought Fabregas would come on and make a goal and Arsenal would win 1-0. That was wrong too.

Diaby had ｃ ｒｅａｔｅd an early chance for Eduardo, who scuffed his shot straight at Brad Friedel.

Second half, Ashley Young looked a certainty to hit a left wing corner into Almunia's hands. And he did exactly that. But Almunia punched it with nobody near him, nobody within five yards of him. You catch those, every time !

Then Fabregas came on in 57 minutes and won a free-kick off Richard Dunn, took it himself, whipped the ball over the wall, flat and hard, beating Friedel for 1-0.

When Traore found Walcott with a long diagonal ball, the kid at last did something right. His control was flawless, his second touch a perfect pass into the sprinting Fabregas, who slotted coolly for 2-0. But Cesc had done his hamstring and had to limp off after a masterful 27-minute cameo

Then the outstanding Diaby supplied the coup de grace. Advancing from the centre circle as Villa backed off, Diaby scored a Dennis Bergkamp goal, using Cuelar as a shield to prevent Friedel seeing the shot he curled into the bottom corner from the edge of the box for 3-0.

Martin O’Neill said it wasn’t a 3-0 but it was. Because Agbonlahor stunk, Ashley Young was hopeless, Downing mediocre, Milner anonymous, Heskey a dumpling, Villa never supported their attacks with runs from midfield.

How did they beat Man United? How did they beat Chelsea at Villa Park? Winning at Liverpool was no shock, since Liverpool are dire this season. It’s a disgrace for Rafa to inject Torres and play him when he's half-fit.

At 25, Torres in his prime but right now he is only 35% of what he can be. It’s horrible to watch. Come on Rafa, get real ! Let him have his hernia operation now.

The Midlands is big enough to provide one top Premier League team and it should be Aston Villa.

They have a heritage and Randy Lerner is a good owner but Martin O'Neill has no bottle.

He’s 57 and going nowhere because his team are so negative! He had his best side out but he turned out to be just another dreary survivalist whose tactics gave his team an inferiority complex. Having been stuffed 3-0, they will now be convinced that they ARE inferior.

Aston Villa never looked like beating Arsenal. Not for 10 seconds did they look like beating Arsenal. They spent half the game defending the penalty spot ! Defending the 12-yard line! How ridiculous is that? They don’t deserve to be Top Four. Fulham play smarter football and have more belief. Brian Clough would have been ashamed of O’Neill on Sunday.

It’s been a hectic Xmas period with some close games, lots of draws, and several lively battles like Hull 1 Man United 3.

So many matches, but, in truth, little has changed. Arsenal are still third and still have a game in hand.

In a few hours time, the whole Sky-hyped EPL circus enters another decade. Football is the only thing that sells dishes, sells subscriptions, sells newspapers, sells gambling websites. Rupert Murdoch bought football in 1992 and he kept buying it for higher prices and the game became 100% showbiz. Most players are tarts.

However, absurd as the 24/7 blitz of football has became, as ridiculous as many of its personalities are, the Premier League can never implode because Murdoch won't let it implode. Too much of his profits depends on football.

If I'm still doing ANR in a year's time, I'll be doing it on morphine.

Dec 28, 2009