28 shots, one goal: Arsenal's wasteful night

Chasity Grant gave Villa the lead against the run of play in the 25th minute, and for the next hour Arsenal did almost everything except score. Chance after chance went begging as the hosts camped in Villa's half, and the longer it stayed 1-0 the more the home crowd's patience thinned.

Russo finally got Arsenal level five minutes from time, turning a night of near-misses into a share of the points rather than a genuine home defeat. It's the kind of late save that looks fine in the result column and much worse in the shot count sitting next to it.

A familiar shape

Twenty-eight shots to one is not a scoreline that reflects a tight, cagey draw. It's the profile of a team that dominated territory and the ball but couldn't find the finishing touch when it mattered, and that gap between control and output is exactly the problem Slegers now has to answer for.

According to the Guardian, this latest result adds to mounting pressure on the Arsenal manager, with the paper framing Russo's goal as sparing the club's blushes rather than papering over anything. One late equaliser doesn't undo 85 minutes of wastefulness, and it doesn't quiet the questions either.

Is this a blip or a pattern

The uncomfortable part for Slegers is that dominance without conversion is the sort of issue that tends to repeat itself if left unaddressed. A single frustrating afternoon against a well-organised Villa side happens to most managers at some point in a season. Three or four of them in a row start to look like a trend, and that's the territory this result edges Arsenal towards.

For now it's a draw, not a crisis, and Russo's finish means the damage is limited to a dropped two points rather than a damaging home defeat. But a manager who needs a stoppage-time rescue to avoid criticism isn't a manager operating from a position of comfort, and Slegers knows that better than anyone watching from the stands.