{"id":2372,"date":"2026-01-04T07:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:30:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:30:25","slug":"arsenal-stretches-premier-league-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=2372","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal stretches Premier League lead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Arsenal fought back from a goal down to beat Bournemouth 3-2 on Saturday, stretching their lead at the top of the Premier League as Aston Villa extended their winning run at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A goal from Gabriel Magalhaes and two from the returning Declan Rice sent the Gunners six points clear of second-placed Villa and seven ahead of Manchester City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rema - AZAMAN\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z2L51xr45As?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta praised the character of his team, singling out Rice and Gabriel, whose sloppy pass set up Bournemouth for the opening goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I love the character of Gabriel, the way he overcome that situation &#8212; it&#8217;s just unbelievable, it says a lot about how much we&#8217;ve grown,&#8221; he told Sky Sports. &#8220;The team found a way to beat them and it&#8217;s a massive win.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Spaniard said that Rice had worked hard to be available after missing Tuesday&#8217;s 4-1 home win against Villa with a knee problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He has stretched himself to the very limit and the team were awarded with two great goals,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evanilson gave impressive Bournemouth an early lead, stroking home after Gabriel&#8217;s error but the Brazil defender made up for his mistake just minutes later, converting after Noni Madueke&#8217;s drive to the byline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>England midfielder Rice side-footed the Gunners ahead in the 54th minute from the edge of the area and gave them breathing space with about 20 minutes to go, producing a low finish from substitute Bukayo Saka&#8217;s cutback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Junior Kroupi brought Bournemouth back into the game with a thunderous right-footed finish but Arsenal held on for a fifth straight Premier League win &#8212; keeping them firmly on course for a first English title since 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier, Unai Emery&#8217;s Villa bounced back from their chastening defeat at Arsenal to beat Nottingham Forest 3-1, recording their 11th consecutive home win in all competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>England forward Ollie Watkins gave Villa a deserved lead on the cusp of half-time with a powerful strike from just outside the area and John McGinn scored twice in the second half, either side of a Morgan Gibbs-White goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Villa boss Emery said his players and coaching staff had held a meeting after their drubbing at the Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I am so happy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We had to recover our energy and our confidence. Here, at Villa Park, the energy we create was really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Forest are competitive. After the Arsenal match we met &#8212; the players and staff &#8212; (and discussed) how we are doing this season, how we are feeling, how we needed to keep the same consistency as before, how we needed to be together and strong.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sean Dyche&#8217;s Forest, who have now suffered four straight league defeats, remain one place above the relegation zone, four points clear of West Ham, who slumped to a damaging 3-0 loss at Molineux. <a href=\"https:\/\/japantoday.com\/category\/sports\/villa-rebound-from-arsenal-defeat-as-west-ham-collapse-against-wolves\">(JapanToday)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal fought back from a goal down to beat Bournemouth 3-2 on Saturday, stretching their lead at the top of the Premier League as Aston Villa extended their winning run at home. A goal from Gabriel Magalhaes and two from the returning Declan Rice sent the Gunners six points clear of second-placed Villa and seven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[698,1173,129,2101,298,2739,892],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-arsenal","tag-aston-villa","tag-bournemouth","tag-declan-rice","tag-english-premier-league","tag-gabriel-magalhaes-2","tag-nottingham-forest"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Arsenal stretches Premier League lead - Tona Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Arsenal fought back from a goal down to beat Bournemouth 3-2 on Saturday, stretching their lead at the top of the Premier\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=2372\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arsenal stretches Premier League lead - 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