Emi Buendia came off the bench to net a 95th-minute winner for Aston Villa and hand Arsenal just their second defeat of the season.
The Argentina international showed great poise to fire into the roof of the net after the Arsenal defence had repelled efforts from Youri Tielemans, Buendia himself and Boubacar Kamara.
It had seemed as though another substitute, Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard, would be the headline-maker after coming off the bench at half-time to cancel out Matty Cash’s first-half opener.
Trossard had missed the Gunners’ last two games after sustaining an injury against Bayern Munich but replaced the ineffective Eberechi Eze at the break and promptly made his mark, firing in at the far post after 53 minutes.
Villa had taken a deserved lead thanks to Cash but the introduction of Trossard and Viktor Gyokeres gave the visitors a greater attacking threat, although the Belgian was taken off late on after possibly suffering a recurrence of his previous problem.
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Villa, who go second for a couple of hours at least, could have been ahead inside 12 minutes with only a fine save from Raya keeping out Ollie Watkins after the England international had turned inside Jurrien Timber, back in the Arsenal side today as one of three changes made by Mikel Arteta.
Arsenal swiftly offered a threat at the other end with Eze seeing an effort disallowed due to Bukayo Saka straying offside in the build-up.
A brilliant Declan Rice challenge prevented Cash from scoring approaching the half-hour mark but there was nothing the visitors could do when Pau Torres’ cross from the left clipped the head of Timber and into the path of the Poland international and he swept it past Raya.
Ben White and Rice both had chances before the break but failed to seriously test Emiliano Martinez.
Arsenal boss Arteta makes changes at the break
Arteta signalled his displeasure by making two changes at the break and the impact was almost immediate as, after 51 minutes, Trossard latched on to a Martin Odegaard cross and fizzed a shot inches wide of Martinez’s upright.
From their next attack, Arsenal equalised. Odegaard and Saka combined down the right and when the Norwegian’s cross was deflected into his path, Trossard made no mistake for what was his 50th Premier League goal.
After regaining their first-half poise, Villa came again and only another brilliant save from Raya denied Watkins.
Martinez then frustrated Odegaard while, at the other end, Donyell Malen came within inches of restoring the hosts’ lead with a shot that had Raya scrambling.
Raya thought he had done enough to preserve a point but Buendia had other ideas.
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