We made it three wins from three with a 1-0 at Villa Park, and unlike the Coventry night this one had to be earned. Bukayo Saka's close-range finish just before the hour settled a tight, physical game against an improved Aston Villa, and a third clean sheet in three keeps us alongside Manchester City at the top with a perfect record. This was not vintage. It did not need to be.

The value of a night like this is precisely that it was not comfortable. We ground out a win we might have drawn in a lesser season, on a ground where Unai Emery has caused us problems before, and we did it without conceding a shot on target. Villa are in transition after a summer that stripped out several first-team names, but they were far from the side that shipped four at Brighton on the opening weekend. They made us work, and we found a way through anyway. That is the habit that wins titles.

The breakthrough came just before the hour, and it came from the bench. Eberechi Eze, on at half-time, fed Riccardo Calafiori down the left, and Calafiori's ball across the face of goal was turned in from close range by Saka. It was Saka's second goal in as many league games, and it was the reward for a substitution that shifted the balance of the match. Before Eze arrived, we had controlled possession without threatening. After him, we had a cutting edge on the left that Villa could not contain.

The goal was almost not needed on the scoreboard, and almost came differently. Six minutes earlier, referee Jarred Gillett had pointed to the spot when Ian Maatsen bundled Saka over, only for VAR to overturn it because the contact began outside the box. Martin Odegaard curled the resulting free kick just wide. We had the momentum by then, and we turned it into the lead two minutes after the disallowed penalty. The margin was fine. The performance earned it.

More than the scoreline suggests, and less than a shot-on-target count of zero would imply. Villa's best moment came early, on 12 minutes, when Emiliano Buendia struck the ball against David Raya's crossbar with the kind of effort that would have changed the shape of the evening had it dropped a few inches lower. After that, they huffed and pressed without ever forcing Raya into a genuine save. For the fifth straight season, we have won our opening away league game without conceding, and that is not an accident. It is the base the whole team is built on.

Villa debutant Zen Suzuki, replacing the departed Emiliano Martinez in goal in front of the Holte End, had the harder night of the two goalkeepers and acquitted himself well, tipping over a near-post header to earn an ironic "world's number one" chant from the home crowd. Nicolas Jackson also debuted for the hosts. Ezri Konsa, back at Villa Park for the first time since his summer move to us, got the mixed reception a returning player always gets, and came through the ninety without incident. The former Villa man keeping a clean sheet at his old ground is the kind of small subplot that makes these away days satisfying.

The honest reading is that we are winning without hitting our ceiling, and that should worry the rest of the league more than a five-goal thrashing would. Our expected goals figure of 1.05 was modest, and we did not replicate the control of the Coventry night or the sharpness of the Community Shield win over City. What we did instead was manage a tight away game, defend our box, and take the one clear chance the match offered. Three games, three wins, three clean sheets, nine points. The forward line is still bedding in after a summer of change, the new midfield spine is still settling, and we are top of the table regardless.

Chelsea at home next, and that will be a different order of test than a transitional Villa side. On this evidence, we go into it exactly where we want to be: winning the games we are supposed to win, without yet needing to be at our best.