Brentford 1 Aston Villa 2
Brentford welcomed Aston Villa to the Gtech Community Stadium with the visitors in good form having beaten Man City and Arsenal in their last two games. Thomas Frank certainly knew the size of the task ahead would test his side which has been depleted by injuries of late.
The visitors started on the front foot and Alex Moreno almost weaved his way through the hosts’ defence but his end product did not have enough power on it to trouble Flekken in goal. Villa are a side full of confidence currently and it was showing in their crisp passing style.
The Bees should have taken the lead when Janelt did well to feed the ball out wide and Damsgaard was picked out in the centre of the goal. Completely unmarked, it should have been one-nil to Thomas Frank’s side but his effort allowed Martinez to make a smart save.
Unai Emery’s side should have gone ahead when the ball was clipped into the back post, Watkins could not get a head on it but Cash stole in to meet it on the volley. Sadly for Villa, his effort whistled inches passed the post.
Credit: @AVFCOfficial
Brentford were giving as good as they got as they looked dangerous on the counter-attack, Wissa cut inside onto his right foot and let fly but his shot deflected behind for a corner. As the cross came in Lewis-Potter controlled it and half-volleyed it into the bottom corner.
While pundits up and down the country will tell you Aston Villa are in a title race, they tend to do this with anyone who can string five decent results together. The jury is still out whether Emery’s side can sustain their form away from Villa Park.
After all, they were beaten 5-1 at St James’ Park, 3-0 at Anfield and also got beat 2-0 at the City Ground already this season. While there is no doubting that they have turned their own ground into a fortress, these results suggest they are very beatable on the road.
Ramsey tried to get his side back into the game but his effort from outside the box was comfortably saved by the Brentford keeper. If Thomas Frank’s team were to get anything out of this game, Flekken knew he was going to play a big part in that.
Aston Villa were trying desperately to preserve their eight-match unbeaten run and Kamara got his head to a cross but could not direct his effort towards goal. He had done all the hard work by beating the defender to the ball and really should have done better.
The hosts then started to exert some pressure on Villa and as Dasmgaard crossed into the box, he found an unmarked Wissa, whose header was saved by Martinez. The Brentford striker really should have scored, it was a massive opportunity to win this game.
Credit: @AVFCOfficial
As Unai Emery’s side cleared another Brentford corner, Ben Mee lunged in on Leon Bailey as he tried to win the ball back. He caught the Villa player high up the leg and VAR got the referee to overturn his initial yellow card and produce a red.
This was to be the turning point of the game and the lifeline that Aston Villa needed. Bailey clipped a cross into the back post and it was met by the head of Moreno to draw the visitors level, with just over ten minutes of the game remaining.
As Kamara then flicked on a corner kick at the near post, Ollie Watkins headed the ball in to give the visitors the lead. Tensions were high and it all kicked off after the goal with both sides failing to control their players.
Martinez was causing more problems for Aston Villa as he continued to rile up the home side and another melee kicked off in added time which saw Kamara shown a red card. Unai Emery had to separate his players to ensure that things did not spiral any further.
Aston Villa held on for all three points but the game left a sour taste in the mouth with the feisty nature of a few incidents. Thomas Frank will be disappointed that his side got themselves into a winning position only to self-destruct in the final fifteen minutes of the game.
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