Arsenal beat Aston Villa after a strong second-half showing

Arsenal continued their impressive start to the 2024/25 Premier League season by beating Aston Villa 2-0 at Villa Park on Saturday evening.

Mikel Arteta's side are making another attempt at winning the title at Manchester City's expense and facing Villa away from home was never going to be an easy task.

Unai Emery's side qualified for the Champions League last season and have improved their squad during the summer, so Arteta knew that his team needed to be clinical.

It ended up being a very chaotic match in which both teams had chances to take the lead. It seemed inevitable that Villa would take the lead when David Raya palmed Amadou Onana's deflected shot into the path of Ollie Watkins who just had to head in from six yards out, unmarked.

Incredibly, Raya was able to throw himself across the goal and palm away the header and it will almost certainly be the save of the season, even with only two games having been played.

Trossard makes the difference

With just under 20 minutes to play, Arteta threw Leandro Trossard onto the pitch in the hopes that the Belgian could find the breakthrough.

He did just that, with his first touch of the ball. Bukayo Saka's low ball into the box eventually found its way to Trossard who fired into the bottom corner and sent the travelling fans wild.

It only took another 10 minutes for Arsenal to find their second goal and secure all three points. Trossard was involved again but it was Saka's pass that found Thomas Partey on the edge of the box.

The Ghanain's low shot should have been saved by Emiliano Martinez but it squirmed into the bottom corner. Arsenal have won both of their opening games and are keeping pace with Manchester City, whilst Villa sit on three points.