Arsenal reach Premier League summit, ease past Aston Villa

By the end of the day it was top of the table against bottom of the table; the gulf between the sides had looked every bit as big as that suggests. It was 17 years to the day since Villa had last beaten Arsenal at home and in all that time, Arsenal can never have had a simpler three points, as they coasted to a 2-0 victory. Villa was insipid going forward and ragged at the back and Arsenal, with basic competence and the odd dash of flair, was almost embarrassingly superior.

Without a win since the opening day of the season, marooned on six points, eight off safety and six behind second-bottom Sunderland, it’s hard to see any future for Villa other than relegation. There were boos from the Holte End at half-time and again at full-time, and the empty seats dotted all around told their own story. This is a club whose fan-base has lost faith and interest.

Poor Remi Garde, brought in to clean up the mess with all the chance of success of somebody entering in the Augean stables brandishing nothing but a toothbrush. His five games in charge have brought only two points and the situation looks increasingly hopeless. Nobody with this few points at this stage of the season has ever survived before.

This was half-heartedly billed as a clash of master and apprentice, Garde having played 31 games under Arsene Wenger between 1996 and 1999, but such are the structural problems at Villa it was anything but a fair fight.  Arsenal dozed off in the early part of the second half as Villa at last enjoyed a spell of pressure, but even that wasn’t enough to allow it back into a game that was won by an Olivier Giroud penalty and a fine team goal from Aaron Ramsey before half-time.

Wenger has described Giroud as an “animal”, a description that seems oddly inappropriate given how often he has been outmuscled by defenders in the past, but Villa struggled to deal with his physicality here. The confidence derived from his hat-trick against Olympiakos on Wednesday  – and Giroud is a player of more fragile self-belief than most – has perhaps inflated him.

Arsenal was ahead within eight minutes. Alan Hutton, never the most subtle of defenders, pulled back Theo Walcott and, after a delayed decision from the referee Kevin Friend, Giroud sent Brad Guzan the wrong way from the spot. Giroud could have had a second 13 minutes later, as he beat Guzan to a floated free-kick only for Rudy Gestede to head his floated header off the line.

Confidence is something Villa is severely lacking. It spent most of the first half deep in its own half, but when it did come forward it was without and great sense of conviction. There were a couple of occasions when  it might have created something but players snatched at shots – Jordan Ayew, never the most clear-headed, and Idrissa Gana were particularly guilty in that regard.

Gana was also culpable in Arsenal’s second, although it would be misleading to focus on him losing the ball when what followed was a stunning breakaway of the sort Arsenal at its best are always threatening. Ramsey made the tackle, Giroud picked up the loose ball and played it to Ozil who switched play out to the left to Walcott. His through-ball was perfectly weighted for Ozil to throw Joleon Lescott with a dip of the shoulder to leave himself one-on-one with Guzan, at which he slipped the ball square for Ramsey, who had sprinted 60 yards to rap the ball into an empty net. It was Ozil’s 13th assist of the Premier League season – and perhaps reinforced the impression that he takes more responsibility when Alexis Sanchez isn’t in the side.

There was a Villa rally early in the second half, Scott Sinclair heading a Hutton cross just wide and Leandro Bacuna sending an ambitious curler just over. Garde can take credit for that but by then the game had long since been lost. There was also a return for Jack Grealish after three weeks out of the side having been pictured drinking following the 4-0 defeat to Everton, which brought applause from the home fans, but it will take more than his inconsistent brilliance to save them.

The second-half slackening may concern Arsenal, but such was its first-half domination, it could hardly be blamed if it subconsciously took it easy in the second. The next task is Manchester City a week on Monday.