Arsenal made it two from two in the Premier League on Monday night.
It was a pretty dull first half – Arsenal having most of the ball and territory, but unable to create any real chance as Aston Villa sat in and waited to counter.
Arsenal thought they had a penalty early in the second half, but it was judged by VAR to be just outside the box – Martin Odegaard coming close to scoring from that free kick.
The goal did come soon after, though. Eze, who looked sharp coming off the bench on the left, fed Calafiori, who had again made an excellent forward run – his cross puts it on a plate for Bukayo Saka to convert.
Arsenal had several opportunities to make more of transitions but failed to find a second goal.
Fortunately, Aston Villa were very poor going forward themselves and failed to register a shot on target and Arsenal saw it out for a 1-0 win.
Rate the players below and see the fan averages, and scroll down to see my ratings.
Here’s how I rated the players:
David Raya – 7
Ben White – 6
Cristhian Mosquera – 6
Gabriel – 7
Riccardo Calafiori – 8
Myles Lewis-Skelly – 6
Declan Rice – 7
Bukayo Saka – 7.5
Martin Odegaard – 6
Christos Tzolis – 6 (Ebere Eze on at HT – 8)
Kai Havertz – 5
Man of the match: Riccardo Calafiori. When he’s on it, he’s up there in the rankings for our best player. Made the difference going forward again and brilliant defensively.