Arsenal were “absolutely bouncing” after Saturday’s dramatic 4-2 win over Aston Villa saw them produce a morale-boosting response to defeat to Manchester City.
Mikel Arteta watched on as Arsenal were twice forced to come from behind at Villa Park in the day’s early kick-off, with Ollie Watkins and Philippe Coutinho putting the hosts in front.
Bukayo Saka and Oleksandr Zinchenko got the equalisers for the Gunners, who for a while looked as though they would have to settle for a 2-2 draw, particularly when Martin Odegaard missed a glorious opportunity.
But in second-half stoppage time, Jorginho’s 25-yard strike hit the crossbar and ricocheted into the goal off Emiliano Martinez’s head to finally put Arsenal in front.
They finished Villa off on the break, Gabriel Martinelli putting into an empty net while Martinez was up the other end for a corner, and Arsenal’s celebrations at full-time depicted intense jubilation after a run of three Premier League games without a win.
The midweek defeat to City saw Pep Guardiola’s men replace Arsenal at the summit, though such a dramatic turnaround appeared to be the perfect tonic.
Asked what the mood was in the Arsenal changing rooms at full-time, Arteta told BT Sport: “It was absolutely bouncing because it was a big effort to play less than 72 hours after the [City] game that we had, and the result we had.
“That is obviously mentally tough, but I’m really pleased with the boys.”
The manner of the triumph was as pleasing as anything for Arteta, who reminded his players they cannot expect to just win games in a straightforward fashion.
“When you want to be at the top, you are going to have to win games in many different ways,” he continued.
“You’re going to have to score goals in the 94th minute, and sometimes play with 10 men, get comeback results.
“To do it especially against this team in this stadium, a lot of credit to the boys.”
Arsenal’s attitude and spirit also impressed Arteta, though he was under no illusions about their performance being far from perfect.
He added: “We showed a lot of character, resilience to get back twice in the game and end up winning it.
“We have to take some lessons from today because especially in the first half we didn’t do the simple things right.
“You give them the two chances to score those goals in a really simple way, but we spoke at half-time, if we raised individual standards and start to do what we have to do, we’re going to win this game, and we then went out – which is difficult – and won it.
“In the second half I think we outplayed them. I think we created chance after chance, dominated the game. We needed a magic moment and Jorginho produced it.”
