Having blown open the Premier League title race, can Aston Villa sustain their own challenge? Brentford seemed to have brought Villans’ dreaming to a halt, as Thomas Frank’s team first dulled their attack and then scored through Keane Lewis-Potter. But once reduced to 10 men after Ben Mee’s red card, they could not resist Villa’s surges and self-belief.
Aston Villa thus celebrate a first win at Brentford since February 1953, the same week Disney released the original Peter Pan feature-length cartoon. A first Villa title challenge of the 21st century is no fairy story, although this encounter featured x-rated tackles, 10 outfield bookings and three off-field amid repeated heavy aggro, including during the celebrations of Ollie Watkins’s winner against his former club.
The game concluded as Boubacar Kamara was dismissed following a ruck started by Emi Martínez’s bundling of Neal Maupay to the floor. Players and coaches piled in. Unai Emery made a beeline for Martínez but did not prevent Kamara’s shove on Yegor Yarmolyuk. “I was trying to calm the players down,” said Villa’s manager, booked for his peacekeeping. “I’m trying to speak with him,” he said of Martínez, the goalkeeper having kept his team in the game. “He had a fantastic match.”
Afterwards, Watkins similarly sought to cool waters, explaining his celebration. “It all spurred from my celebration but that’s not down to a lack of respect for the fans,” he said. “I love the club, the players and staff, I’ve not got a bad word to say against them. But there was one person who was abusing me all game.”
The suggestion from the Villa camp was the abuser had spoken ill of Watkins’s family. “I know Ollie as a person of top integrity,” Frank said, equally diplomatic.
Brentford are racked with injuries with Bryan Mbeumo’s absence until beyond the Africa Cup of Nations a particularly acute problem even if one of Frank’s best assets as a manager is responding to setbacks. He particularly enjoys doing so by beating clubs with eyes on haughtier targets but what looked a likely coup became a fifth defeat in six. “They gave everything,” he said of his team.
Taking a dim view of the scenes at the end, he criticised his players though was clearly equally unhappy with Villa’s behaviour. “But it’s important we show class.”
Until Mee’s dismissal the signs were that Villa, for all this season’s advancements, lack strength in depth. Leon Bailey, outstanding in keynote defeats of both Manchester City and Arsenal and eventually key to victory, was fit only for the bench and two previous ever-presents in Douglas Luiz and Lucas Digne were serving suspensions.
From the kick-off Brentford, no slouches in pressing, were confined to their defensive third. Still, that left space for counterattacks and it took Martínez’s brilliant reaction save from Mikkel Damsgaard to prevent an early Bees lead. Brentford had a penalty shout declined when John McGinn appeared to wrench Mee to the floor in an act of Glaswegian affection that foreshadowed the later ugly scenes. “I thought there were three mistakes today,” Frank said. “Sometimes you feel unfairly treated but you have to move forward.”
In the stands, sat with his fellow absentee Rico Henry, Ivan Toney doubtless wondered what hay he could make from a Villa defence offering much with which to work. Away from home, Villa’s mistakes have been far more prevalent – and costly – than at fortress Villa Park. On the stroke of half-time, Lewis-Potter took full advantage of such slackness. The ball bounced variously from the orbits of Kamara, Watkins and a flailing Álex Moreno before the former Hull player waited for Saman Ghoddos’s corner to score a first Premier League goal.
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Villa began the second half beating at the door of a retrenched Brentford, Emery twisting himself in knots on the touchline. It took Mee’s dismissal to turn the game Villa’s way. A high tackle on Bailey was both a tactical foul to stop the forward escaping and a rake of the Jamaican’s shins. Mee made himself ready to depart as soon as the referee, David Coote, was called to the video screen. Frank asked: “Do we want a physical contact sport or not?” His mood turned yet more purple when the substitute Maupay was baulked by Ezri Konsa and yet neither Coote nor the VAR, Craig Pawson, deemed that worthy of a penalty.
Soon enough Bailey helped to bring Villa level, finding Moreno at the back post, and tensions began to brim over – Frank taking particular exception to Austin MacPhee, Villa’s lank-locked set-piece coach. That it was a corner that brought Villa their late winner probably only added to Frank’s agitation. Jacob Ramsey took it, and Kamara’s back-heel found Watkins to nod in and celebrate in the uncharacteristic goading fashion he later had to explain. Villa’s impossible dream endures, though they lived on their nerves to keep it that way.
