For the final 20 minutes of yesterday’s game, Villa looked the dominant force. The passing was fluent, tackles well-timed and there was even the rare sight of Gareth Barry moving out of defence to intercept midway through Villa’s half. Indeed, when Juan Pablo Angel completed a flowing move from Ulises de la Cruz on the right flank, it was the home side that appeared most likely to add to the scoring.
Unfortunately 70 minutes had elapsed hitherto, during which Arsenal had opened up a three-goal lead with a sublime brand of football more than slightly reminiscent of the Hungarian ‘Mighty Magyars’ side of the 1950s. Dennis Bergkamp, Henry, Juan Antonio Reyes and Ljungberg lined up in a virtual four-man forward line and such was their early dominance, that by the time Ljungberg broke the deadlock on ten minutes, calmly clipped the ball over Thomas Sørenson after seizing onto Edu's pass, they could have been 2-0 up already.
Sørenson did well to parry a left-footed curling effort from Bergkamp on two minutes and then quickly recovered to block the rebound effort from Henry. Moments later Patrick Vieira should have found the net but volleyed over after collecting a chip from Bergkamp. Ljungberg did break the deadlock within minutes, however, outpacing the wrong-footed Liam Ridgewell, and although Henry was guilty of a glaring miss when he scooped the ball over the bar from close range after Edu's shot had struck a post, the writing was already on the wall for David O’Leary’s side.
Henry had not scored for seven matches but ended the drought on 14 minutes when he again capitalised on Villa’s narrow defending to latch onto Ljungberg’s through ball and drilled a shot into the corner of the net. Angel did manage to touch the ball just before the half hour but when Jens Lehmann broke the move up, Arsenal advanced through Henry on the right and his crossfield pass found Bergkamp whose first-time flick played in Cole and his superb shot flew past the flailing Sørenson.
At this point, the Holte Enders were desperately leafing through their history books and pondering the club’s record 8-1 defeat against Blackburn at the end of the 19th century, but Arsène Wenger’s side were unable to maintain their charge. Having said that, they remained significantly better than Villa. If Arsenal were playing like the Mighty Magyars, Villa were reminiscent of the Mighty Magpies – Notts County.
Vieira and Henry both went close either side of the interval, as the home side began to allow their frustrations boil over with Jlloyd Samuel and Eric Djemba-Djemba – making a dire Villa Park debut – both going in the referee’s notebook. The duo were withdrawn moments later with Thomas Hitzlsperger and Mathieu Berson entering the fray. It marked a turning point for the vanquished midfield who, save for the impressive Steven Davis, had offered little to counter the Arsenal surge. The hammer gently knocked balls up the flanks to Angel and Luke Moore, while Le Crabe was his usual horizontal self.
Within ten minutes Villa had pulled a goal back and could have had a second moments later but had to content themselves with a 3-1 scoreline and lament the fixture list for giving them Arsenal on the rebound following Manchester United’s 4-2 win on Tuesday.