Gabriel Martinelli sinks Aston Villa to maintain Arsenal’s perfect start

Arsenal can spend another few days admiring the view. They remain top, yet to drop a point, and continue to rack up the early-season wins while rivals falter. The narrow margin of victory flattered a largely woeful, shapeless Aston Villa but the very fact of it will cheer Mikel Arteta.

When Douglas Luiz cancelled out Gabriel Jesus’s opener 16 minutes from time with a bizarre goal direct from a corner, the leaders found their mettle tested for the second consecutive home match. They responded almost immediately with a winner from Gabriel Martinelli, whose performances have stepped up a notch this term, and it was the least they deserved. If points were being won in such circumstances a few months from now, it might be described as the stuff of champions.

There was a sense Villa would have to play on the edge to keep pace with Arsenal and the risk was they might take things too far. They rode their luck wildly in the early stages, Bukayo Saka claiming a penalty when a sparkling run took him past three players and ended with a tumble under the challenge of Tyrone Mings. Nothing was awarded, a VAR check making sure, but it set the tone for total Arsenal dominance..

Shortly afterwards John McGinn piled in on Ben White and, from Martin Ødegaard’s quickly-lofted free-kick, Jesus forced Emiliano Martínez to repel smartly. Next it was the turn of Gabriel Magalhães, Saturday’s matchwinner against Fulham, to shoot inches wide via a deflection; he soon had another go with an effort Martínez held.

Villa could barely get close to Arsenal. Jacob Ramsey tried to show Martinelli he was there but only dumped him over with an unpleasant challenge for which he was booked. Next, Mings was beaten too easily by Jesus and thankful Martínez