The finish was chaotic, brilliant, exhausting but, when the dust settles, this perhaps was the afternoon when Aston Villa made a decisive spurt for the finish line to claim Champions League qualification. As Tammy Abraham touched in the winner three minutes into injury-time, Unai Emery ran on to the pitch in celebration. Yet just a minute earlier Habib Diarra had been set clean through with a chance of his own to win it. Emi Martínez, though, stretched up to save his dink, and the road was cleared for the Villa winner.
“We need strikers and goalkeepers,” said Emery. “It was the match – three points for them and no three points for us.”
