Ryan to Gunners: let’s not dwell on Aston villa defeat

Arsenal debutant Mat Ryan says they cannot dwell on defeat to Aston Villa.

The Australia international made a string of fine saves at Aston Villa on Saturday but he could do nothing to prevent Ollie Watkins’ early opener after a decisive deflection off Rob Holding.

He said afterwards, “Besides the start of the game, we thought we were right in it. We were competing but we were just that little bit slower out of the blocks than they were. We got punished for it and at this level, you get punished for the smallest of things.

“You don’t even need to make a mistake or be off your game to get punished at this level. That happened in the first initial minutes and they made us pay for it.

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“I can’t fault the effort we put in. We were probing and pushing but the ball just wasn’t falling for us at the end. Emi made a couple of blocks and interventions, I tried to play my part at the other end but unfortunately I wasn’t able to contribute to the result. We’ve got to build on it and keep going.”