Arsenal earn first win of 2021 with second-half rout of Aston Villa

Aston Villa 0 Arsenal 4

Arsenal manager Joe Montemurro said his team had “started the ball rolling for a really good run” after scoring four second-half goals to claim their first win of 2021.

Several postponements, combined with a run of one point from three games that dashed their title hopes, had meant Montemurro’s side had not won since Dec 20.

More than two months later, they got back to winning ways with a patient and classy performance at the Banks’s Stadium.

They had to wait a long time to open the scoring against a Villa side playing with five at the back. In the first half Arsenal enjoyed near-total domination of possession, but found it difficult to break down the hosts’ well-organised defensive shield.

When the visitors did get shots away, they initially found Germany goalkeeper Lisa Weiss in good form. She did brilliantly to tip Noelle Maritz’s strike away from the top corner, before keeping out a close-range effort from Vivianne Miedema, after Beth Mead had earlier drilled a low shot just wide. Miedema and her Holland team-mate Danielle van de Donk both volleyed over the bar as Arsenal created good chances shortly after half-time too.

Villa’s Elisha N’Dow fired narrowly over at the other end with the hosts’ best moment, almost immediately before the opening goal.

The breakthrough came when England forward Mead’s right-wing cross was turned home by Miedema, the season’s top scorer moving level with Manchester City’s Ellen White as the joint leading goalscorer in WSL history on 55 goals.

England playmaker Jordan Nobbs, who was lively in a wider role than usual as one of the front three, soon added the second on the rebound after Weiss saved a low Miedema shot.

Arsenal’s third came from a moment of real quality, as the Republic of Ireland’s Katie McCabe drilled home a powerful rocket of a strike from 25 yards, before substitute Lisa Evans headed in from McCabe’s well-placed cross from the left to add the fourth late on.

Montemurro’s fourth-placed side could have won by more, with Maritz hitting the bar and Mead curling wide in a dominant display.

Afterwards he said he and his team had “never mentioned” their winless spell, adding: “We’ve had challenges since the turn of the new year, with scheduling and a lack of games and so on. So effectively, we just made a pact to say we just want to get back to where we want to be.

“We want to do it our way and make sure we do it with confidence and belief and keep smiling. We found a good bit of rhythm, we started to find a bit of our belief and our way of playing and I was very happy with that. Even at half-time, I felt like we just needed to tweak a couple of pieces to get the result that we needed.

“We have the football, we have the players, we have the belief, we have the preparation to be the best that we can be and we have now started the ball rolling and the rhythm for a really good run.”

The result, from one of Arsenal’s games in hand, meant they narrowed the gap on third-placed Manchester United to six points, with a further game in hand and a fixture against United to come.

Defeat leaves Villa in 10th place, four points above the relegation zone, and their interim manager Marcus Bignot said: “We were against quality opposition and I know the saying is that the season isn’t defined by these games, but I don’t want to create a culture where we just accept losing.

“We know we’ve kind of identified the fixtures where we need to pick up points, but I don’t want to have these games and just accept we’re not going to take points. It’s an opportunity, that’s the mindset we have got to create here now.”

Former Birmingham City manager Bignot’s team did not have a shot on target, but he is optimistic about Villa’s future, adding: “I’ve seen enough in my short time here in five weeks that this football club can dream about competing against the top four. What I’ve seen off the pitch, I tell you what, it’s got everything.

“The most important thing is we have got to stay at this level first and foremost, for us to be able to build, believe and then hopefully achieve.”