Neither Aston Villa nor Arsenal were able to find the net when the two sides met at Villa Park this evening.
Hosting Villa went closest to breaking the deadlock when Brett Holman's powerful shot from distance was tipped onto the crossbar by Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.
Here, Sports Mole looks back over the 90 minutes plus stoppage time to determine if either side can say that they deserved the three points.
Match statistics:
Aston Villa:
Shots 10
On target 8
Possession 48%
Corners 7
Fouls 6
Arsenal:
Shots 13
On target 6
Possession 52%
Corners 6
Fouls 9
Was the result fair?
If both teams were brutally honest, neither could argue that a draw wasn't a fair outcome. Maybe Arsenal had more of the ball in attacking areas, but they didn't do enough in front of goal to claim that they deserved the win.
Aston Villa's performance
Granted they didn't win, but there was plenty from this encounter for Paul Lambert to be positive about. For a start they defended well, which they haven't done in recent weeks. Also, when they went forward, they caused Arsenal problems at times.
Arsenal's performance
Everything they did was pretty up until a point, but then the final pass or shot let the Gunners down. They missed the creative spark of Jack Wilshere, with Santi Cazorla failing to live up to his displays from earlier in the season.
Sports Mole's man of the match
Ciaran Clark: The young Irish defender has had to step up to the plate this season and he has done so admirably. He carried it on today with a string of tackles to halt attacks from Arsenal. His positioning was also always spot on, which saw him clear a number of crosses.
Biggest gaffe
In truth, the match was so uneventful that there wasn't even a major error to talk about!
Referee performance
Like the previous topic, because there were no major incidents, there were not many decisions for Lee Mason to make. The official would probably hope that every match he is in charge of is like this one!
What next?
Aston Villa: On Tuesday evening Villa will play hosts to fellow strugglers Reading.
Arsenal: The Gunners are on the road again on Wednesday night when they travel to take on Everton at Goodison Park.
Liam Apicella
