Saka settled it on Arteta’s 250th league game, and Villa still have not had a shot on target

Riccardo Calafiori got to the byline in the 59th minute at Villa Park, pulled the ball back, and Bukayo Saka finished from close range. That was the match. Arsenal won 1-0 overnight, kept a second clean sheet in two games, and were never seriously asked a question by the side that finished fourth in the Premier League last season.

Aston Villa had seven attempts. None of them went on target. Arsenal had 61 per cent of the ball and managed two on target from seven, which was one more than they needed. The expected goals read 1.05 to 0.32. Jarred Gillett booked Ian Maatsen in the sixth minute of stoppage time for a foul on Saka, and by then the only open question was how long Unai Emery would keep chasing an equaliser his team had shown no sign of finding.

Two matches, not one save forced

Villa have played twice this season and have yet to make a goalkeeper work. They lost 4-0 at Brighton on 23 August, all four goals inside 31 minutes, Joao Gomes sent off on his league debut, and no shot on target in that one either. Opta make them only the second side since detailed records began in 2003-04 to get through their first two league games of a season without hitting the target. The other was Swansea City in 2017-18, and Swansea went down that year.

The comparison that should worry Villa Park more is the older one. Emery’s side came fourth last season with 65 points and a Champions League place. No English top-flight club has followed a top-four finish by losing its opening two games without scoring since Queens Park Rangers in 1976-77. Brighton exposed a squad thinned out over the summer; Arsenal simply took the ball off them and waited.

Arsenal have made this their trademark

Arsenal were not especially good. They did not have to be. This was their 14th Premier League win by a 1-0 scoreline in the last three seasons, six clear of any other club over that stretch, and it is now the shape a Mikel Arteta team falls into when a game is tight. Since the start of March they have kept eight league clean sheets, three more than anyone else in the division. Only Juventus have more across Europe’s big five leagues.

Two games into the title defence, the champions have scored four and conceded nothing. Manchester City are above them on goals scored and nothing else. Arsenal won the league by seven points last season, their first title in 22 years, and the early evidence is that they have not decided to start playing differently because of it.

A round number for Arteta

Monday was Arteta’s 250th Premier League match in charge of Arsenal. He played 284 in the competition before that, which makes him the second man to reach 250 on both sides of the touchline, after Mark Hughes. He has won 151 of the 250, a rate bettered only by Pep Guardiola, Alex Ferguson and Jurgen Klopp among managers who have got that far.

Villa go to Hull City on 5 September looking for a first point and a first goal. Arsenal host Chelsea the following afternoon. One of those fixtures is about the title; the other, two games in, has already started to look like something else.

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