‘Lucky’ Arsenal slammed for Villa celebrations – ‘It was like they’d won the league’
Aston Villa defender Ashley Young hit out at Arsenal’s celebrations after their 1-0 victory at Villa Park on Saturday, claiming it was like ‘they had won the league’ and that his side were unfortunate.
Mikel Arteta’s men cemented their top-four spot thanks to Bukayo Saka’s first-half goal. Indeed, a slightly disappointing Villa only mustered one effort on target in the entire match in the 94th minute.
That save from substitute goalkeeper Bernd Leno prompted wild scenes of celebration from the visiting players when the match ended moments later.
The Arsenal players then stayed out on the Villa pitch for some time afterwards. They saluted the away end, singing along with chants and handing over shirts to supporters.
And Young felt their celebrations were over the top, echoing the sentiments of Wolves’ Ruben Neves. The midfielder was shocked at how the Gunners celebrated after beating them with a 95th own goal in February.
Speaking to Villa TV afterwards, Young said: “We want to make this a tough place to come. And I think it is a tough place.
“You saw the way they celebrated, to be honest it was like they won the league. But it shows they found it tough.
“We want to be in those European places, we want to get the club back there, and everyone’s got that ambition to get the club back there.
“So we want to make it a tough place to come, but we want to be winning games as well.”
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Young also felt Arteta’s men you were a tad fortunate to leave will all three points. Villa dictated the second period and looked likely to equalise, without really creating that much.
He added: “In the second half we played much better football. We were all on the front foot and we were looking like the only team that was going to go and get that goal and it’s disappointing we weren’t able to today.
“It’s one of those things. On another day, if we started the game like we started the second half, it would have been a totally different story.
“Or if one of them [half chances] goes in it puts Arsenal even more on the back foot and the fans get behind us and we go even more full throttle to try and get a second goal. On a different day it could have been a different story.”
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