Unai Emery relieved after revealing Aston Villa sub plan

Watkins volleyed home Matty Cash’s cross to complete a superb fightback which saw the visitors come from two goals down to take a point.

Duran was stood on the sidelines waiting to come on when Watkins scored and Emery later admitted he was about to make a change up front.

“They are moments in the game,” said Emery. “He (Watkins did a fantastic job). I wanted to change him for Jhon Duran because I wanted a fresh player doing the same work.

“But when he scored, in that moment, I preferred to wait because in that moment he was excited.

“There is a possibility to play with both strikers but it was more difficult with our gameplan today to do that.”

Villa had looked to be sliding to defeat when they trailed 2-0 through goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz.

But Youri Tielemans brought them back into it with a diving header on the hour mark, before Watkins netted eight minutes later to complete the turnaround.

Arsenal were then denied a late winner when Kai Havertz was ruled by VAR to have deflected Mikel Merino’s shot in with his hand.

Merino then hit the post while Leandro Trossard was denied by Emi Martinez in stoppage time as Villa withstood a late Arsenal rally.

“We showed resilience, we showed mentality. How we reacted was fantastic,” said Emery.

“This is the process we have. We have experiences, playing in the Premier League and in Europe, against some of the best teams.

“We took on Arsenal, who are one of the favourites along with Liverpool to win the league.

“How we competed of course is clear. We did a really fantastic job. This process for us is very important, how we achieved it.

“I was thinking maybe we can get another option in attack to score and win. This is the attitude I want. But we had to be resilient in the end.”