Ollie Watkins’ second-minute goal proved the winner as Aston Villa’s 1-0 victory condemned Arsenal to a second league defeat in five days.
Watkins made the most of some lax defending between Cedric Soares and Gabriel, which allowed Bertrand Traore to steal in before teeing up his team-mate for a close-range finish with only 74 seconds on the clock.
Aston Villa boss Dean Smith: “I said to them at the start that we had gone away from being a good team on Wednesday, and the values we’d had to be a good team had been about the workrate, the team ethic and being good team-mates. We saw that in bundles today.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta: “It was a really strong performance again today. We completely dominated the game; we dominated every department and we should have won the game.
