Gunners escape with precious point

WHEN YOU face a two-week period that could define your season, it is hardly the best start to be completely outplayed by one of your principal rivals, barely test the opposition goalkeeper and see both your defensive linchpin and principal striker come off injured.

Yet despite all of those events coming to pass last night, Arsenal still managed to escape Villa Park with a valuable point that could prove crucial at the end of the season.

Yes, the visitors twice hit the woodwork, but they were second-best throughout a contest that somehow ended goalless. Manuel Almunia may not have been duly untroubled as Villa failed to score for a fourth successive League game for the first time in eight years, but Manchester United and Chelsea will not be unduly perturbed on this evidence.

Indeed, Villa would have won were it not for some atrocious finishing, with Stewart Downing the prime culprit. Downing and wing partner Ashley Young were causing havoc on the flanks, and the former missed an astonishing opportunity some five minutes after the break, heading wide Young’s cross when it was genuinely easier to score.

Yet Arsenal escaped with a point, although they will nervously await injury bulletins on centre-back Thomas Vermaelen and striker Eduardo, both of whom were forced to limp off.

With Manchester United visiting north London on Sunday and games with Chelsea and Liverpool following within the next 14 days, Wenger’s squad will be stretched to the limit.

Despite the draw, these are positive days at Villa Park, however. They may be four points off the top four, but are in the Carling Cup final and playing some genuinely entertaining football. If their finishing matched their build-up play, they could have an argument for being labelled title contenders.

This was a match that threatened to burst into life, yet never quite did. With Young terrorising Gael Clichy, Villa were not short of opportunities in a high-octane opening 45 minutes. Downing lashed over from the most inviting of those chances, when Young curled the ball to the far post, only for the unmarked England man to volley over from eight yards. Young himself had come close before with a free-kick that brushed Almunia’s post, yet Martin O’Neill will have been disappointed that his side had not made the Spanish goalkeeper work more.

And it was the hosts who breathed a sigh of relief on the stroke of half-time as Arsenal nearly scored with their first meaningful attack. Fabregas, as usual, was at the heart of it as he scampered past two challenges and drove in a shot that beat Brad Friedel only to flick off the outside of the post, with Tomas Rosicky and Aaron Ramsey getting in each others’ way as they went for the rebound.

But Villa’s fortune in keeping their goal intact was nothing compared to Arsenal’s luck five minutes after the interval. Again, Young was the instigator, and when his cross looped off Clichy’s head to the far post Downing had time and space to head the ball in from virtually on the goal line, only to somehow contrive to hit the outside of the post.

The chances kept coming though, with the otherwise anonymous Andrey Arshavin showing superb skill on the hour to weave past two defenders before forcing Friedel into a sprawling save. From the rebound, Fabregas laid the ball of to Rosicky, who slammed a shot against the underside of the bar and away to safety. The Czech should have done better.

Nicklas Bendtner did his best to make an impact for the visitors on his return from three months out of action, coming on for Eduardo – who appeared to have pulled a hamstring – yet the Dane was clearly short of match fitness as Arsenal struggled to make inroads into a well-organised Villa defence.

And the hosts kept coming at Arsenal, with Clichy left exposed time and again as Young continued to run at him. Yet the chances began to dry up as Gabriel Agbonlahor and Emile Heskey tired, and in the final stages it was the visitors who looked likeliest to score.

That they didn’t was, in the end, only fair. It would have been a hugely undeserved victory, yet the point may be vital in the long run.

Aston Villa substitutes: Delph (78).

Not used: Guzan, Sidwell, Delfouneso, Davies, Shorey, Beye

Arsenal substitutes: Campbell 7 (35), Bendter 6 (61), Nasri (79) Not Used: Walcott, Fabianksi, Traore, Eastmond

Man Of The Match: Ashley Young (Aston Villa) – Terrified Gael Clichy every time he got the ball and left the full-back with twisted blood and demonstrated just why he could be in England’s World Cup squad this summer.

REFEREE: Lee Probert (Gloucestershire) 6/10: A little too fussy at times and could have let the game flow more, but was in control of a well-fought contest throughout.

MATCH RATING: *** This game really needed a goal to kick-start it into life, and both sides did everything but score. Villa were the more impressive and Arsenal will be glad to leave with a point.