Deliberately left it until today for my tuppence worth.
Felt deflated in Saturday, as I was expecting a win at Villa, given how we have been playing recently. What depressed me was not so much the mistake that led to their goal (these things happen - albeit seemingly too much with our players), but how straightforward Villa's game plan was. Dean Smith did not have any magic strategy. He just made sure that his players were absolutely on it from the get go, then really disciplined in defence once they had scored. Not rocket science. And despite us being almost at full strength attacking wise, we had no way through. We seemed always to go for the pass, and allow them to get back into shape when going forwards, and this lack of speed - in thought as well as execution - made us look quite blunt.
2 days later I'm a little more phlegmatic. We are (and always were) a work in progress, and I think that expectiations were raised a bit too high by our little unbeaten run. We are still IMO a long way away from the shambles before Xmas. We have a better shape and more options generally going forwards. I have a bit more faith in Arteta and Edu after our January business - Odegard and Matt Smith look like sensible acqisitions, and while Cedric is not good enough as a back up to Tierney - I am not going to kill them for not finding a better replacement. Aubameyang worries me - and in hindsight his contract renewal looks a bad deal but none of us really thought this at the time. The big black mark is Willian - both the deal and the manager's bewildering continued faith in him - but not much more to say about that.
I still expect us to finish top 10, and as long as we continue to show that there is a game plan on the pitch and can build on this then I will take that this season. However I need the manager and team to show that we really have moved on from the first half of the season - and the more games that go past without 3 points the more shaky our 'renaissance' seems.