It was a good win. Not a good performance for most of it but a good win. I honestly think if we'd drawn or lost there last night then that was it, we'd slip away down the league and be back to our more normal scrapping for 4th or 5th. Not saying we won't be doing that come March/April (because if Arsene doesn't strengthen before the end of January, we will be) but it is nice to still be up there for a little while longer.
Mert was my MOTM, not that he had much competition as no one was outstanding, but he made some great tackles and read their few attacks mostly very well. His positioning for their goal was poor but dictated by him not thinking Santi would piss posession away like he did. The ball in was brilliant, if Mert had tried to touch it he'd have put through his own net, and you can see him pull his leg back in realisation.
Jack had 2 flashes of brilliance - one for his goal and one for his assist to Giroud. The rest of his game was the usual running into blind alleys and losing posession. Giroud battled well enough as the lone striker and his first touch for the goal was excellent as was his finish (the touch off his knee in between was lucky) but he very obviously tired late on and looked leggy. And what the fuck he is doing tracking back to make tackles on the edge of our box when he is the 1 in a fucking poxy 4-5-1 is beyond me. Respect the effort and intent, but such a stupid waste of energy and time.
Ozil and Santi were absolute pants, apart from Ozil's ball in behind for Nacho. Accepted Villa parked the bus George Graham style (who says you can't play 9 across the back 4?!

) but we reverted to tippy tappy too easily and let them just sit there soaking it up. 4-4-2 with 9 of them sat across the box will nearly always stifle out 4-5-1 by the basic fact of denying space. If you persist with 4-5-1 then you absolutely have got to have 2 wingers or overlapping wing backs getting down to the touchline and whipping in crosses - something we absolutely don't have with Gibbs and Sagna, two of the worst crossers of a ball I've ever seen.
Letting them back into it in the last 15 minutes was criminal and we were lucky not to be punished.
Lots of negatives, Villa are pure shit, but we won and it's a good 3 points.