Even while sitting top of the Premier League by six points with a Champions League semi-final second leg to look forward to next week, Arsenal supporters might well have winced on Sunday evening.
The fading dream of a Spurs relegation would not have helped, but it was Unai Emery’s continued inability or even outright refusal to balance his squad on the sharp end of two competitions which felt painfully familiar.
Aston Villa were several shades of dreadful in a miserable defeat to Tottenham, who had more than twice as many shots and a greater share of possession than their hosts.
Emery conceded that “they deserved to win”; he could hardly have claimed the opposite.
But these wheels were set in motion with that insipid loss at Fulham which surrendered any and all semblance of momentum ahead of a Europa League semi-final first leg that Villa could never get going for.
The manager pretended that “we are not thinking of the Europa League that we are going to play in this Thursday – the focus is completely 100% today” at Craven Cottage last weekend, but his players proved otherwise.
And against Spurs it was more of the same: a fringe team putting in a performance more bald than bold to ensure they have a standing start against Nottingham Forest on Thursday in front of a fanbase with dwindling patience and irrepressible thoughts of a generational bottling.
That might sound farcical considering Villa are fifth and in a European semi-final at the culmination of a season which started so dismally. But Villa are trailing in the latter and now holding on for dear life in the former, seven and six points clear of Brentford and Bournemouth respectively with three games remaining.
It could be enough, even if Villa would prefer for Champions League qualification to be wrapped up with a top-five finish before the last two games against Liverpool and Manchester City.
A visit to relegated Burnley this weekend ought to do it, but even that will feel perilous and portentous when they appoint Emery’s Villa predecessor Steven Gerrard with a point to prove.
And this is a gamble the Spaniard has lost it all on before.
When Arsenal reached the Europa League semi-final in April 2019 and Emery made it his public priority, Arsenal responded by losing their next three Premier League games and drawing another, ultimately missing out on Champions League qualification by a single point before being thrashed in the Europa League final.
“We lacked that little extra to get through a lot of games in those final weeks,” he later said of a collapse which contributed heavily to his sacking months later, adding that “some players had a mentality that says one day ‘yes’, one day ‘no’, when in football it has to be ‘yes’, ‘yes’, ‘yes’ every day”.
That line in particular seemed apropos in the aftermath of his tetchy post-Spurs interview.
There were some lessons learned when Villa reached the Europa Conference League semis in 2024, but two draws and defeats apiece in their final four Premier League matches would have been punished by a more competent rival for fourth place than Spurs.
The same opponents, even at their stupidest, exposed the continued folly of Emery placing all his eggs in one basket. It could yet end in a trophy and top-five finish, but a chastening week has hinted at another monumental, empty-handed, sack-inducing implosion instead.
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