By Aston Villa FC

Jack Grealish heaped praise on his Aston Villa teammates after they took control of their Premier League destiny on Tuesday night.

 

Organised and committed in defence and fluid in attack, Villa upset Arsenal thanks to Trezeguet’s first half strike.

 

The result moved the team out of the bottom three for the first time since February, and Grealish said the victory was months in the making over lockdown.

 

He said: “Since we’ve come back, we’ve deserved more than we’ve got. We had certain things before COVID-19 that we were struggling with – one of them being set-pieces.

 

“We conceded too many goals, and over that time [during lockdown] we had Zoom calls twice a week and once we were back in training, we were working on it every single day.

 

“Since we’ve been back, we’ve defended brilliantly and we’ve also been brilliant from set-pieces, so it shows we’ve been working hard.”

 

The Gunners had been riding high after beating Manchester City to reach the FA Cup final three days earlier, but they failed to register a single shot on target at Villa Park.

 

Keinan Davis had a big chance to put the game to bed in the second half, but Grealish always felt his team would be able to protect their lead.

 

“I thought we were outstanding, everything about us – our game management, our defensive display, the way we counter-attacked,” the Villa captain said.

 

“The only problem was I thought we should have got another goal, but we’ll take a 1-0 win against a great team like Arsenal all day long.

 

“We had trust in ourselves, the way we’ve been training, the way we’ve been playing, and we’ve got trust in the management staff. Deep down, we all knew we were going to cling on and luckily we did.

 

“The ball’s in our court now, so it’s up to us what we do on the last day now. Nothing’s done yet and we have a massive game on Sunday against West Ham. We’ll be giving our all again.”

Advert Advert