Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a late winner for ten-man Arsenal who twice came from behind to beat Aston Villa 3-2 at the Emirates.
Dean Smith's visitors had twice led at the Emirates Stadium only to fall to a 3-2 defeat as Aubameyang struck with six minutes remaining.
John McGinn had given Villa a surprise lead but, despite Ainsley Maitland-Niles' dismissal late in the first half, club-record signing Nicolas Pepe equalised from the penalty spot.
Villa stunned the home crowd once more as they regained the lead just 89 seconds later, Wesley turning home, only for Callum Chambers to hit his first Arsenal goal since August 2016 and
Aubameyang to provide the winning moment to take Unai Emery's side into the Premier League top four.
Match highlights
As with most of Arsenal's games this season, the start of the match was wide open. Bernd Leno was tested twice by long-range McGinn efforts, the second of which was well saved by the Germany international.
The visitors went ahead following more suspect defending from Arsenal. Anwar El Ghazi crossed and McGinn, who had already lost Matteo Guendouzi, ghosted in between three static Arsenal defenders to steer the ball home.
Arsenal's afternoon only looked to be heading in one direction when Maitland-Niles was sent off four minutes before half-time for a second bookable offence.
A Villa mistake presented Arsenal with a way back into the contest. Guendouzi bundled his way into the penalty area and was tripped by Bjorn Engels, Pepe picking up the ball and slamming the resulting spot-kick down the middle to level.
Villa responded immediately, first McGinn flashing a shot wide before Jack Grealish broke into the box past Sokratis Papastathopoulos and crossed for Wesley to finish at the near post.
Aubameyang ballooned over the bar but Emery's side then equalised for a second time as Chambers stabbed home from six yards at the second attempt.
The comeback was complete less than three minutes later as Engels fouled Aubameyang on the edge of the box and the Gabon striker, wearing the captain's armband after Granit Xhaka was taken off, fired in his seventh of the season from the free-kick.
Arsenal 3-2 Aston Villa Opta stats
- Arsenal's 3-2 win over Aston Villa was only the ninth occasion in Premier League history a team has won a match after receiving a red card while losing - three of those wins have been by Arsenal (also v Derby in 1997 and Bolton in 2008).
- Arsenal won a Premier League game they were trailing in at half time for the first time since December 2018 (4-2 v Spurs at the Emirates).
- Aston Villa haven’t won any of their last five Premier League away games when scoring first (D1 L4), suffering defeats in each of their two such games in 2019-20 (1-3 v Spurs and 2-3 v Arsenal).
- Arsenal have only kept one clean sheet in their last 10 games against newly-promoted teams in the Premier League (1-0 v Huddersfield in May 2018), including none in their seven such games under Unai Emery.
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored 16 goals in his last 16 games across all competitions for Arsenal, including in each of the last four games in a row (five goals).
- Arsenal’s Nicolas Pépé has converted 10 penalties since the start of last season within the top five European leagues; the joint-most of any player in this period, along with Luka Milivojevic and Fabio Quagliarella.
- Since making his debut for Aston Villa in August 2018, John McGinn has scored nine goals in league competition - no other current player at the club has netted more (Jonathan Kodjia also with nine).
- Bukayo Saka became the third-youngest player on the day of his first Premier League start for Arsenal, with only Cesc Fábregas (17y 104d) and Theo Walcott (17y 212d) doing so at a younger age.
- Ainsley Maitland-Niles has now been sent off twice in the Premier League in 2019; the first Arsenal player to receive multiple red cards in the competition in the same year since Laurent Koscielny in 2013 (also two).