The halftime team talk that Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta gave at Villa Park contained a clue that might inspire his team to come from behind and defeat Aston Villa and earn all three points.
Ollie Watkins and Philippe Coutinho’s goals in the first half gave Villa a 2-1 lead at the break. Arsenal’s first-half goal, scored by Bukayo Saka, briefly brought the Gunners even.
Arsenal came out in the second half hoping to change the course of the match as they eyed a return to the top of the Premier League. Oleksandr Zinchenko scored the equalizer in the 61st minute, and in the fourth of the added time, Emiliano Martinez’s diving head deflected Jorginho’s drive off the bar.
Martinez went up for a final Villa corner, and Arsenal scored their fourth goal on the break. Unai Emery later said that it wasn’t done with his permission.
During halftime, with the Gunners down, Arteta shared the message he provided to his team that appeared to spark a comeback.
According to football.london, he said in his postgame news conference, “We had some difficulties in the first half collectively and individually we dropped the level way down and we stopped doing the little things well.” “After halftime, we declared that if we wanted to come out and win the game because we could, the time was now. We had to lift our individual game.
“After making a few changes, we delivered a very strong performance. We probably ought to have won it sooner than we did.
The Arsenal manager also emphasized the errors made by his squad in Villa’s two first-half goals.
“Well, intensity… Ollie Watkins wants to attack you, and that is the first objective, he declared. He remarked, “You give the ball away and it’s one pass, one pass, and then he really executes the movements.”
“The second one, Bukayo, is halfway hurt, it’s gone, it’s a corner, and we are not prepared and not finishing the game as we ought to. It was an entirely different story in the second half.