Match Review: Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 3 - Premier League 17.8.13

First and foremost, the performance was quite simply not good enough. We started brightly, dominating the early exchanges and up until around 20 mins we were comfortable. Villa looked off the pace and let us play. Ramsey and Wilshere had oceans of space to operate in and the goal we scored after 6 minutes was mainly down to some very dopey Villa defending. The back four were caught much too high, Chamberlain scampered down the left and Giroud was given the freedom of the penalty box to knock it in. Villa looked like they needed another pre-season friendly; they were pressing poorly and I noticed a few times that the back four were poorly positioned (full backs staying deep while the centre backs inexplicably pushed up).