Aston Villa 2-4 Arsenal: Fabio Vieira celebrated Martinelli's goal well before he scored | OneFootball

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·18 February 2023

Aston Villa 2-4 Arsenal: Fabio Vieira celebrated Martinelli's goal well before he scored

Article image:Aston Villa 2-4 Arsenal: Fabio Vieira celebrated Martinelli's goal well before he scored

Arsenal edged out Aston Villa in a six-goal thriller on Saturday afternoon.

The game was locked at 2-2 going into stoppage-time.


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The Gunners never led during normal time but they won it in the final minutes of the match.

Jorginho's 25-yard effort struck the bar but, fortunately for Arsenal, rebounded into the net via the back of Emiliano Martinez's head.

Martinez then went forward when Villa were given a corner in the dying moments.

Arsenal cleared the danger and broke towards Villa's goal.

Fabio Vieira found Gabriel Martinelli and the Brazilian winger raced away before tapping the ball into an empty net to seal Arsenal's victory.

Fabio Vieira's reaction after sending Gabriel Martinelli clear on goal

Martinelli celebrated a few seconds before tapping the ball into an empty net.

He wasn't the only person celebrating well before the goal was scored - Vieira was too.

The Portuguese midfielder found Martinelli and, despite his teammate being 40 yards away from goal, he knew what the outcome would be.

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Mikel Arteta: Arsenal showed resilience and quality vs Villa

Mikel Arteta praised his side after they defeated Villa.

"I think we showed a lot of resilience, character and quality. The context of the game was difficult, with the performance that we had against City and getting nothing out of it," he said, per Arsenal's official website.

"Then having to come here less than 72 hours later and finding ourselves 1-0 down after five minutes. We had to play the next 90 minutes and we had some difficulties in certain periods during the first half.

"Individually we brought the level right down and stopped doing the simple things right. At half-time we said we had to raise the individual level, we had to look each other in the face and we had to do much more if we wanted to come out and win this game.

"We altered one or two things and then we produced a very strong performance and probably should have won it earlier than we did."

Arsenal are now two points clear at the top of the table and have a game-in-hand over Man City. They are next in action on February 25 when they take on Leicester at King Power Stadium.

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