Aston Villa 1-0 Arsenal: Emery gets revenge as Gunners fail Villa Park test

Arsenal's title aspirations suffered a blow as the Gunners fell off the top of the log following a 1-0 loss to high-flying Aston Villa in Saturday's late kickoff.

Scottish midfielder John McGinn scored in the seventh minute what turned out to be the only goal of the game to end Arsenal six-game winning streak across all competitions.

The result was also Aston Villa's 15th consecutive home win in the Premier League as manager Unai Emery has turned Villa Park into a fortress.

Spanish manager Unai Emery welcomed his former club Arsenal to Villa Park where he is doing a superb job and is currently achieving more than he did in North London.

After defeating treble-winners Manchester City in midweek, Aston Villa had all the momentum coming into this one and took the lead with their first meaningful chance of the game inside just seven minutes, as John McGinn turned and fired into the top corner to score his sixth goal this season after some fantastic work down the right wing by Leon Bailey.

Arsenal grew back into the game and started to dominate with their first real chance falling to Gabriel Martinelli who lobbed ex-Gunners goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, but his effort was cleared off the line.

Martin Odegaard had multiple chances to score but the Arsenal captain spurned them as Martinez refused to be beaten in this keenly-contested game.

Arsenal did get the ball into the net twice in the second half but Bukayo Saka's goal was ruled out for offside and Kai Havertz's much later in the game was chopped off for handball in the build-up.

Aston Villa held on for the win to remain third in the Premier League but now just two points off table-topping Liverpool and one behind Arsenal, putting them very much in the title race.