Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal: Bukayo Saka inspires champions to cagey win at Villa Park - as Gunners' new £55m signing Ezri Konsa returns to make debut against his old club

On Witton Lane, just beyond where The Holte pub stands proudly at the junction with Trinity Road, Aston Villa supporters slowed and stopped to gaze at a wall. A crestfallen lad of seven or eight asked his dad what had happened to the images that once adorned it. Older men, inured to football’s fleeting loyalties, smiled wryly at the speed of the erasing.

Three faces had stared out from that wall until the weekend. Ollie Watkins was first, eyes front and fist clenched. Rachel Daly had been in the middle. Last, nearest the Holte End, Emiliano Martinez had stood with his finger pressed to his lips. Now, a couple of hours before the Arsenal game, they had all been painted over. Disappeared. All that remained was a broad expanse of deep purple.

It is a bit harsh on Daly, who is still the women’s club captain, but she is collateral damage in the midst of the men’s exodus. Watkins fled Villa for Saudi riches, as if he wasn’t paid well enough, and Martinez left in haste at the end of last week for Chelsea. They are non-persons here now, symbols of desertion and change at the start of a season shrouded in uncertainty.

Change is everywhere at Villa Park. The North Stand is being demolished. Its only inhabitants are empty seats, half-hidden mechanical diggers and the skeleton of the lower tier. The team has been demolished, too. Of the starting XI that won the Europa League final last season, Watkins, Martinez, Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers are all gone. To some, it was no surprise Villa lost 4-0 to Brighton in their opening game last weekend.

There have been so many departures, the uninitiated could have been forgiven for wondering if Villa would be able to field a team at all after selling £340m worth of talent. Prospects looked particularly stark against an Arsenal team liberated by winning the league last season and whose summer has been a model of stability and gradual improvement. Konsa, now at Arsenal, only made Mikel Arteta’s bench.

The managerial elan of Unai Emery was one of the only things standing between Villa fans and despair and the rebuilding has already begun. The name of Martinez was still on the squad list on the back page of the programme but his place was taken by Zion Suzuki, signed from Parma. And Villa’s new record signing, Nicolas Jackson, signed from Chelsea, started in attack.

Villa summoned the first shot. McGinn lifted it high over the bar and on to the terrace of concrete steps at the front of what is left of the North Stand. A workman in a fluorescent jacket and a hard hat retrieved it and handed it to a ballboy. A couple of minutes later, Emiliano Buendia crashed a piledriver off the face of the Arsenal crossbar.

Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard, Arsenal’s two leading creative forces, struggled to make any impact but that was partly because Villa were working so hard to stifle them. As the half wore on, Arsenal exerted more and more control without creating clear chances. Suzuki made a fine save from a Declan Rice header but play was brought back for an infringement.

Jackson nearly created a chance out of nothing for young George Hemmings but Villa’s new striker was feeding on scraps. Even if Arsenal were not fluent, even if they were misplacing passes in the final third, it felt as if they were playing within themselves, ready to move up a gear after the interval.

Arteta recognised the need for that higher gear and brought Eberechi Eze on for Christos Tzolis at half-time. But it was still Villa who made the better chances: Ian Maatsen lifted a shot just too high two minutes into the second half. Arsenal simply came forward again, like a boxer who keeps taking punches and keeps advancing.

Arsenal were awarded a penalty when Saka fell under the challenge of Maatsen as he tried to run on to a through ball from Rice but VAR showed that the foul had taken place just outside the box. Odegaard took the free kick. He lifted it over the wall but just wide of Suzuki’s left-hand post.

But Arsenal would not be denied. Two minutes before the hour, they took the lead. They probed patiently on the edge of the Villa box until Eze slipped a ball into the path of Riccardo Calafiori. Calafiori stretched for it and hooked it across goal where Saka got to it first and forced it over the line from close range.

Now the tempo of the match increased. Villa’s fans roared them on as they began to press for an equaliser. Emery brought on Tammy Abraham and Alysson for Jackson and Hemmings. The depth of Arsenal’s squad is such that Arteta was able to respond by calling on World Cup winner Mikel Merino and Brazil’s Bruno Guimaraes.

Arsenal thought they were going to double their advantage 15 minutes from the end when Havertz raced on to a pass from Guimaraes and advanced on Suzuki. Suzuki stood up to him and blocked the shot. It would not have counted even if he had found the net. The linesman’s flag went up to signal Havertz was offside.

Konsa also came on for Arsenal, another sign of their strength and another blow to Villa morale. He was roundly booed by Villa fans every time he touched the ball. The Holte End roared McGinn’s name as a kind of rebuke and a tribute to the last of their action heroes but they could not breach Arsenal’s defence.

Arsenal coasted through to the final whistle. They have two wins from their first two games. There is still nothing to suggest that they are not the team to beat this season, the favourites to retain their title.

Villa have played two and lost two and uncertainty still stalks them. It may be some time before new faces appear on that wall of deep purple on Witton Lane.