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"...and when they are good, they are very, very good - but when they are bad, they are horrid"
I fell for it, you see. I brought my two young lads to the game tonight and, before we set off up the M5, I warned them that there was a good chance that Villa would lose. But that if we did, it would more than likely be to a side whose skill, flair and "total football" sets them apart from anything else the Premiership has to offer.
Even with world class talent like Henry, Van Persie and Adebayor missing, I lectured them, Arsenal would be more than capable of fielding an eleven with a sumptuous, almost irresistible reserve of natural brilliance.
With Ljungberg, Fabregas, Rosicky, Gilberto Silva, Julio Baptista, Alliadiere and Walcott all available, we were bound to see the ball sprayed around the Villa Park turf with merry abandon and the result, I suggested, was likely not to be in our favour.
As far as the last point is concerned, of course, I was right.
As for the rest, we were left dumbfounded by what we saw. I will move on to assess Villa's latest performance, but first I think we need to deal with this strange beast that is Wenger's Arsenal.
Arsene Wenger and his team have repeatedly tried to claim football's moral "high ground", implying incessantly that the attractiveness and grace of their football is almost beyond the end result.
Defeat is scarcely justified in their eyes, and always the compound effect of bad luck, biased officialdom or unscrupulous opponents. And let's face it: to a large extent, the media have tagged along like so many rats to Wenger and Henry's piping.
But ultimately, Arsenal are falling victim to their own pompous and indulgent self-branding: outfought and out-competed in the Carling Cup Final, they showed themselves utterly ungracious in defeat.
Outfought and out-competed in their FA Cup quarter final against Blackburn, they reacted grumpily and haughtily, before surrendering predictably and naively to PSV in their Champions League exit.
You have to ask the question: is this a team of sublime quality or a bunch of whining prima donnas? Tonight, for many of us, we got our answer, as Arsenal fell over, feigned injury, wasted time and generally lost friends in all four stands. And that even without Emmanuel Eboue...
Villa, with a fraction of Arsenal's talent, tried to play. They didn't do it particularly well, but Arsenal couldn't even be bothered. Building their game on a tedious George Graham-esque offside trap, they stifled, contained and wasted their way through a 90 minutes in which their greatest victories were the outrageous fortune of a wildly deflected goal, and the seemingly undying affection and love-blindness of three match officials.
It was a grudging, in fact almost insulting Arsenal performance, and I didn't enjoy one second of it. I won't fall for it again.
And Villa?
Villa set themselves up in what seemed at first like a 4-4-2, but the shape soon evaporated. The team is falling prey to the "Crouch effect", where the presence of a tall centre forward encourages the endless belting of long and high balls forward.
In itself, that could be threatening and effective - but Ashley Young, Gabby Agbonlahor and Stan Petrov were rarely close enough to big John Carew for the tactic to carry any real menace.
Petrov had a curious game - full of running and excellent defensively, he seemed to want to out-McCann Gavin McCann. His determination and commitment were excellent to see, but it did leave a big hole behind John Carew. With Ashley Young frequently wide left and getting no service and Gabby struggling for form wide on the right, it all became too disjointed.
Carew played well and, as in all his appearances in a Villa shirt so far, he looked quick, powerful and dangerous. But to maximise the threat he poses Villa must get other forwards playing off him. It may sound strange, but I have a feeling - even after only a couple of games so far - that Villa missed Shaun Maloney tonight, especially with both Gabby and Ashley Young decidedly off colour.
Gareth Barry is becoming a problem. Not because he isn't playing well - he is - but because with Young drifting out left and Freddie Bouma pushing forward, Barry is struggling to find his role in the side. No panic: these are the classic symptoms of a team that has played only one Premiership game in six weeks, and I expect O'Neill, Roberston and Walford to iron out these issues.
At the back, Olof Mellberg had a fine game - however, a lot of that "fineness" came in covering for Gary Cahill, who was often caught out of position. It is becoming ever clearer that Cahill, Ridgewell and Agbonlahor are very far from rounded Premiership players and Mellberg needs an equally experienced and competent centre-half alongside him. Whether that is Laursen or a new recruit remains to be seen.
For the record, Thomas Sorensen could do nothing about the goal, which span past him in agonising slow motion, but for the other 93.5 minutes was pretty much immaculate, and used his box alertly and excellently throughout the game to thwart a number of half-chances.
I'm not sure how to summarise this one. Villa tried to play, Arsenal refused, and the referee - for my money - turned down a nailed-on penalty in each half and issued a yellow card for a cynical last-man tackle to deny a clear goal-scoring opportunity.
Well done ref. You may just have kept the Arsenal myth alive. But myth it is.
Villa: Sorensen 8; Bardsley 7; Cahill 6; Mellberg 8; Bouma 7; Agbonlahor 5; McCann 6; Petrov 7; Barry 7; Carew 8; Young 5 Sub: BERGER 9
Villan-of-the-Match: BERGER: in 15 minutes, he showed more class than any other player in all the previous 75 minutes put together.
Man-of-the-Match: MARTIN ATKINSON (REF): made all the difference and all but guaranteed the result.
Note from Admin: This is a very late report from the Doc because of us not him. We lost the report, sorry.
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