A night on from the chaos of Manchester City beating Fulham 5-4, Arsenal seized the opportunity to prove that they are a sturdier proposition than Pep Guardiola’s side. They kept their eighth clean sheet of the season despite losing another centre-back to injury and restored their five-point advantage at the top of the Premier League by seeing off Brentford thanks to an early header from Mikel Merino and a late goal from Bukayo Saka.
It was another stolid effort from Mikel Arteta’s side. They made an enterprising start, delighting the Emirates Stadium when a lovely move ended with Merino’s second goal in four days, but they could not maintain their flow and were leaning on their resilience when Cristhian Mosquera increased their defensive issues by limping off before half-time.
The loss of Mosquera could be significant. Arsenal coped against Brentford, the unfamiliar partnership of Jurriën Timber and Piero Hincapié holding out, but it will be different at Villa Park on Saturday. A resurgent Aston Villa will fancy their chances given that Arsenal are already without Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba.
Although Arteta does not have a reputation for tinkering, part of his focus has to be on keeping energy levels high in this slog of a season. There is nothing to gain from overplaying key assets and the benefit of freshening things up was evident during a start in which Arsenal did not appear to be carrying any extra weight after the physical and mental toll of facing Tottenham, Bayern Munich and Chelsea in the space of a week.
