Acclaim for champion effort

Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 2

Villa Park rose as one at the final whistle to acclaim a performance of champions, writes Tim Nash.

Yes, Arsenal may well surprise many and go on to win the Premier League title this season.

Victory at Villa Park on Saturday took them five points clear of the chasing pack with over a third of the season gone.

But the champions' display wasn't from the Gunners, even if they toyed with Villa in the first-half to leave them chasing shadows.

No, the lofty accolade for a title-winning showing was Villa's as they produced an unquenchable 45 minutes' worth of football in one of the finest home performances seen at the grand old stadium for some time.

Now, many would doubt whether Martin O'Neill's side will challenge the Champions League places this season, let alone the championship.

But such was the intensity, tempo, desire, commitment and no little skill of Villa's second-half performance on Saturday, that you sense they could, maybe in a couple of years' time, make a genuine tilt at muscling in on the top four, and who knows, the big prize itself.

Certainly it's no exaggeration to say that the ferocity and aggression of their all-out attacking in a breathless second-half here was reminiscent of Manchester United in the mood.

One by one, the pieces appear to be falling into place.

Sixteen months after taking charge, O'Neill has rebuilt a rudderless, mid-table team and infused it with those all-important staples of pace and confidence, along with renewed desire and a fierce will to win.

All these qualities have made flickering appearances in most Villa games this season.

But they came together in one blinding light on Saturday to conjure a dramatic transformation that was crucially only found wanting in luck in front of goal.

For such intensity to be shown against such formidable opposition only prompted genuine feeling that Villa can qualify for Europe this season.

Now that may sound optimistic when you consider this was their crowning performance and one they lost.

But they really were that good, and, as O'Neill acknowledged, they would have beaten 17 teams in the Premier League playing like that.

There is more evidence to underline just how Villa are a transformed force.

The recent four-match winning run may have come against lower to middling opposition, but games against Derby, Birmingham, Middlesbrough and Blackburn are the sort of tests Villa have been tripped by regularly in the pre-O'Neill days.

Success in those fixtures was more evidence that the manager has also added that steely resolve of champions.

Belief is another and that word figured high in what the players revealed O'Neill had ordered them to start showing in his half-time team talk.

Whatever the Villa chief said isn't known, but there's no doubt his words transformed his players into lions.

And they were up against an outfit who needed some taming. Thierry Henry may have gone, the Premier League's finest player Cesc Fabregas was out injured and so was Robin Persie.

But as anyone who was at Villa Park on Saturday tea-time will testify, Arsenal are some side and will take some stopping this season.

For 45 minutes, they passed the ball around arguably as well as any side ever has at Villa Park and found so many impossible spaces and angles that it seemed as if they had 15 men on the pitch at times.

Yet Villa hit back after the break to give them one almighty fright and the Gunners had to withstand immense pressure to extend their unbeaten sequence in the league to 22 matches.

As Arsene Wenger readily admitted afterwards, no team has pushed his excellent young side like Villa did, and indeed it was Arsenal who were hanging on for their lives at the death.

Football is full of cruel ironies and Villa's was that having gone into the game with four successive wins, they lost having played better than in any one of those previous matches.

They were, as O'Neill acknowledged, immense, and playing like that, they will beat most teams at this level.

O'Neill is a huge admirer of Arsenal and Wenger, with the Northern Irishman's big ambition to join them and break into the top four with Villa.

The Villa boss holds the Gunners up as a template to follow, and that's certainly what his side were doing before the break.

Twice keeper Scott Carson – under-worked for Villa until last Wednesday's trip to Blackburn – came to the rescue on two occasions.

First he tipped away Emmanuel Eboue's powerful, angled drive, then he bravely darted at the feet of Alexander Hleb after he burst clean through.

But Villa started equally lively and Craig Gardner should have done better than skying an effort with keeper Manuel Almunia out of position.

If that was wasteful of Gardner, the young midfielder more than atoned with the opening goal in the 14th minute.

Gardner, in for the suspended Nigel Reo-Coker, steered home a left-foot volley for his third goal in only his seventh start after arriving late in the box when John Carew's cross had flicked off Toure and the head of William Gallas.

Arsenal's silky football was always going to get its reward however and it came just nine minutes later when Mathieu Flamini slammed home from just inside the penalty area after Eboue and Emmanuel Adebayor had tied Villa's left hand side up in knots before crossing.

Arsenal continued to find gaps and angles which left Villa's heads in a spin in a dazzling first half.

But when Villa emerged for the second period, they were a different proposition and Martin Laursen somehow screwed wide with the goal at his mercy before Carew's towering performance was almost matched by similarly powerful header which hit the bar.

That proved to be the zenith of Villa's attacking, but substitutes Shaun Maloney and Patrik Berger could have jangled Arsenal's nerves even more only to fire straight at Almunia.

Despite those late setbacks, Villa remained in the ascendancy – something Villa Park will do if the team carries on performing like the final 45 minutes on Saturday.