Arsenal 1-2 Aston Villa: Gunners automatic CL place in doubt

Arsenal were made to pay for their remarkable inability to put the ball in the back of the net when they lost 1-2 to Aston Villa at the Emirates this afternoon.

The result leaves Arsenal's ambitions of a third place Premier league finish in the balance, while confirming Aston Villa's top flight status for yet another season.

Arsene Wenger has lamented Arsenal's end-of-season capitulation after a 1-2 loss to Aston Villa hands Manchester City the advantage in the race for a third placed finish in the Premier league.

A win would have taken the Gunners to within a point of second placed Chelsea but as it stands, City have a game in hand at home against Stoke, with a win seeing them leapfrog Arsenal in the table.

With the top three in the Premier League assured of automatic Champions League qualification, the fourth placed side face the potential banana-skin of a two-legged qualification tie - which almost provided a stumbling block for Tottenham earlier this season.


After the game, Wenger admitted that failure to finish in the top three represented a poor return for his side who were fighting on four fronts just a few weeks back, yet have now slumped to three defeats in their last four Premier League games.

"Of course we are frustrated," he told reporters.

"We dropped three points today that could cost us automatic qualification for the Champions League. It will be a big setback to finish fourth.


"We have been hit hard recently by bad performance and results. You can see we suffered at the start today but we have to raise above that. We were nervous defensively."


source: Goal.com