Muzi watching the tiger fight | Unai Emery played his master and then his apprentice, and Villa beat Arsenal with the blessing of luck

The midweek win over Manchester City, which allowed them to shoot just two shots on target, shocked a number of people, including Mikel Arteta.

As a disciple of Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta's Arsenal have too many similarities with Manchester City in terms of team building ideas. The players are of course different and therefore have different characteristics, but in the most basic way of thinking, there are not many differences between the two teams.

This is also the reason why Emery did not choose any adjustments, and directly copied the 11-man midweek response.

As we said in midweek, Villa's win over Manchester City was very limiting, and Unai Emery's side had a lot of problems against Arsenal players with different characteristics.

But luck is still on their side.

The same starting 11, so the mechanism of Villa's conversion is still the same as in midweek:

Kamara moved in with Kai Havertz and filled in the gaps between Konsa and Diego Carlos as he defended.

However, just as Manchester City can hit Aston Villa's back post in midweek, Villa's defence lacked wide coverage when Kamara didn't fall into the back line, so in the sixth minute, Arsenal formed the first good chance with successive lateral transfers:

But just one minute later, Villa got on the scoresheet.

A regular push down the right flank, with Leon Bailey, Tielemans and Kamara forming a trio, creating a line through constant running and finally breaking through Arsenal's right flank, Leon Bailey sent in a cross and McGinn slotted the ball in:

In this goal, Havertz's defensive positional sense and Zinchenko's space behind him were the backdrop for Aston Villa to create scoring opportunities, but Gabriel's lack of a front for Tielemans was also one of the mistakes.

Arsenal didn't quite cover Zinchenko's ability to play elsewhere, but Arteta still built up tactics in this way, essentially attacking instead of defending.

Because when there is the ball, Zinchenko can really help when the ball is out:

Unlike Akanji and John Stones, who played in those positions in midweek, Zinchenko is short, moves quickly and has a noticeably quicker tempo on the ball, so he can take advantage of Villa's gaps in the defensive system and send the ball forward to his team-mates between the lines.

In addition, Arsenal can also create chances by pressing, after all, there are no particularly bulky players up front, even Havertz, who is quick enough in terms of speed and change of direction to block more angles:

But what really sets them apart from Manchester City is Gabriel Jesus is a starting point.

Compared to Haaland, Jesus is of course less powerful than Haaland, and he doesn't use it as a way to eat, but there is clearly more to do than that.

For example, he could switch to the wing with great ease, increasing the burden on Aston Villa on the wing:

It's a situation that Villa haven't coped with in midweek.

In the 24th minute of the game, Gabriel Jesus continued to contain the opponent on the wing, and after winning the ball in the ribs, he and Saka teamed up to penetrate the ribs, but the latter's cross was blocked by Villa:

As for this kind of singleness in the 42nd minute, it is a performance that Haaland is difficult to replicate:

Therefore, in the face of such a completely different forward opponent, Aston Villa's defense naturally feels more heavy pressure, and they need to come up with different ideas in the situation of switching positions and single defense, so as to try to keep not conceding a goal.

Of course, Gabriel Jesus may not be as resolute as Haaland when the opportunity arises, after all, his midfield nature means that he will always look for ideas that are theoretically better for the team.

Just like in the 38th minute, he created a chance by pressing, and he gave the ball to Odegaard, who would have been more fluid in his shooting posture, but the latter did not take advantage of this opportunity:

Although they were down by one goal and didn't take advantage of the chances, Arsenal's performance was okay.

What's more, they saw a new way of tactically opening up the attack, which was not to create a local advantage in the midfield area through passes, but to capture the gaps in width and depth by playing behind before Villa switched to a back three:

This line of thinking is correct, but it still depends on whether the power of the middle flank can be in place, because Martinelli's position is tactically too close to the wing, even if he can play behind him from an offside position, Martinelli's final shot angle will be compressed very small, so whether it can be played depends on the result of the middle and back point outflanking.

Unfortunately, Arsenal missed the chance again. In the 58th minute, Kai Havertz got back in from the ribs, but Odegaard, who flanked in the middle, deflected the ball wide:

The Norwegian missed two of the best Arsenal had in attack, and he only had one chance to change the scoreline, and it was a shame that all he needed to do was shoot.

Of course, this is not the first time that Odegaard has disappointed the team in the crucial time of shooting.

As the 60 minutes ticked, Emery began to adjust.

They were able to survive this stage, in addition to Arsenal's own lack of chances, and the relative silence on Saka's side.

Saka, despite his positional advantage, has always been outside the overall tactics. Against the backdrop of a strong attack from the left, Saka should be more involved in the middle to support his team-mates, but he is always on the touchline, which naturally leaves him at a loss.

Therefore, Arsenal's attacking efficiency has never been able to pull out to the highest level in theory, and the good opportunities at the current level have been wasted, plus Villa have always had the ability to counter-attack from Zinchenko's area:

As a result, after Unai Emery gradually replaced the wide players and replaced Cash and Alex Moreno, Arsenal's wide attack began to die down.

Including the appearance of Dendoncker, it also added considerable vitality to Villa's backfield, which is an important foundation for them to survive until the last minute.

In this regard, Emery will not disappoint.

In the final moments, they withstood Arsenal's last attack:

Thus reaping the victory of the game.

Aston Villa have performed well against last season's champions and runners-up, and have scored six points from both goals, which is bound to serve as a model for other Premier League teams to follow when they play Manchester City and Arsenal.

It's hard to say in detail, but the way the back three, or the way the back three or four switch, may be something that other teams will start to learn.

But compared to the midweek game, the pressure on Villa in this game has increased a lot.

Gabriel Jesus' versatility, Martinelli's and Bukayo Saka's back-to-back wingers, including Kai Havertz's impact at the back, are all characteristics that City do not possess in midweek, so Emery's side have struggled against an Arsenal side that have a similar mindset to Manchester City, but with different characteristics, and there was an element of luck in the win.

After all, Odegaard missed two good chances in a single game, which is still quite an amazing performance.