You could conclude that Steve Sidwell is an embittered, failed Arsenal player when he said that his former club appear the most vulnerable of the Barclays Premier League’s top four clubs. Or you could conclude that the Aston Villa player, having spent 90 minutes bossing the midfield at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, is well qualified to pass judgment on the chances of Arsène Wenger’s side of winning the title.

“You look at the top four and you come to Arsenal thinking you can pick up points,” Sidwell said. “That’s how it looks to me. You can get points at Arsenal. Perhaps they don’t take their chances as well as Manchester United or Chelsea – those two are more clinical. And to be honest they didn’t really have any chances. I believe you play Arsenal home and away and think you can get a result.”

Wenger shook Sidwell’s hand after the game and said “well played”. “He was the one that told me it wouldn’t work out for me here and advised me to move on and show people what I could do, and that’s what I’ve done,” Sidwell, who never made a first-team appearance for Arsenal, said. But Sidwell, who moved to Villa via Reading and Chelsea, has provided a damning verdict on Wenger’s team, who surely cannot challenge for the title if they are not feared.

“We deserved the points,” Sidwell said. “We set out to go and attack, not to sit back, and catch them on a quick break. We want to pick up on this and make it more consistent.”

Wenger was almost lost for words. Asked if he would analyse video foot-age of the defeat, he said: “We were beaten by a team who were sharper than us and you can watch that again on the tape; it doesn’t change.”

This was his side’s fourth league defeat and it is only November. Teams have scraped points off Arsenal by being overly physical or stoic in keeping men behind the ball, but Villa were simply the better team in all areas. Not many sides can afford to miss a penalty against Arsenal but so sprightly and diligent were the visiting team that instead of returning for the second half looking like children whose Christmas presents had been taken away, they battled on, heads held high, allowing them to joke about Ashley Young’s poor spot-kick. “My toe was throbbing a bit, but Youngy’s no good at them, so I would have stepped up,” Gareth Barry said. He was receiving treatment and not allowed back on to the pitch in time to take the penalty.

In keeping with this season’s theme of unpredictability, Arsenal had defeated the champions the previous week and Villa had been poor against Newcastle United and Middlesbrough. “Remember only last week Arsenal were exquisite against Manchester United,” Martin O’Neill, the Villa manager, said. “So for us to keep taking the game to them, to have kept going, was the most pleasing aspect.”

They took the lead when a scuttling run from Ashley Young led to a cross that Gaël Clichy headed past his own goalkeeper. A hoofed clearance led to Villa’s second, but so composed was the manner in which Gabriel Agbonlahor dealt with the chance that it would be unfair to label it a hit-and-hope goal. O’Neill said that what marks out the big clubs is their ability to recover quickly from disappointment. Wenger has his work cut out to prove the point.

Arsenal (4-4-1-1): M Almunia 5 B Sagna 5 W Gallas 5 M Silvestre 5 G Clichy 4 T Walcott 5 F Fàbregas 5 Denilson 4 S Nasri 5 A Diaby 6 N Bendtner 5 Substitutes E Adebayor 5 (for Diaby, 62min), C Vela 5 (for Bendtner, 68), K Touré (for Sagna, 71). Not used L Fabianski, J Djourou, A Ramsey, A Song. Next: Manchester City (a).

Aston Villa (4-1-4-1): B Friedel 6 C Cuéllar 5 C Davies 7 M Laursen 7 L Young 6 S Petrov 7 J Milner 5 S Sidwell 7 G Barry 7 A Young 7 G Agbonlahor 8 Substitutes not used: B Guzan, M Harewood, J Carew, Z Knight, M Salifou, N Reo-Coker, C Gardner. Next: Manchester United (h).

Referee M Riley Attendance 60,047

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The four Aston Villa players named in the England squad for Berlin did enough to merit inclusion in his starting lineup, Gabriel Agbonlahor taking his goal with the sort of confidence befitting an international-class striker.