Ollie Watkins seals furious comeback win for Aston Villa at Brentford

Having beaten Manchester City and Arsenal and blown open the Premier League title race, could Aston Villa sustain their own challenge? Brentford seemed to bring the reverie to a halt as Thomas Frank’s team first dulled Villa’s confidence in attack and scored through Keane Lewis-Potter. But then, reduced to 10 men after Ben Mee’s straight red, they could not resist Villa’s surges.

Aston Villa could celebrate a first victory at Brentford since February 1953, the same week Disney released the original Peter Pan feature-length cartoon. A full 70 years on, a first Villa title challenge of the 21st century is nothing like fairy story though this was a game featuring x-rated tackles and full of aggression, including during the celebrations of Ollie Watkins’ winning goal. The game was concluded by a ruck that saw Boubacar Kamara dismissed after Emi Martínez had bundled Neal Maupay to the floor and both teams had piled into each other.

Brentford are wracked with injuries and Bryan Mbeumo’s absence until beyond the Africa Cup of Nations is a particularly acute problem, though one of Frank’s best assets as a manager is to respond to setbacks. He particularly enjoys doing so by beating clubs with eyes on haughtier targets, but what looked like a coup became a fifth defeat in six. Until Mee’s dismissal the signs at the G-Tech were that Villa, for all this season’s advancements, may lack strength in depth.

Leon Bailey, outstanding against both City and Arsenal and eventually key to victory, was fit only for the bench while two previous ever-presents in Douglas Luiz and Lucas Digne were serving one-match suspensions. From the kick-off, Brentford, no slouches in pressing football, were confined to their own final third as Villa pushed hard. That opened up space for Brentford counterattacks and it took Martínez’s brilliant reaction save from Mikkel Damsgaard to prevent an early Bees lead. Brentford also had a decent penalty shout declined when John McGinn appeared to wrench Mee to the floor in an act of Glaswegian affection that foreshadowed the ugly scenes that would later follow.

Villa’s high line invites the type of long, searching pass that Yoane Wissa chased beyond Ezri Konsa, only for a heavy touch to betray him. That appeared to invoke Villa hesitancy, though Matty Cash went close when finding space to ghost in at the far post. Watkins, against his former employers, booed by the locals, was being kept relatively quiet by the defence marshalled by Mee until Konsa’s diagonal allowed him to nod the ball into the path of Jacob Ramsey. The speed of arrival meant the midfielder could not slow himself for a composed finish.

Both teams were attempting to tempt the other into conceding space and thus chances, very much Premier League modernity, though it was Brentford who sat deeper in greater numbers. In the stands Ivan Toney was doubtless wondering what hay he could make from a Villa defence offering plenty to work with. Away from home, Villa’s mistakes have proved far more costly than at fortress Villa Park.

On the stroke of half-time, Lewis-Potter took full advantage of the slackness that can come with such risk-taking values. The ball bounced variously from the orbits of Kamara, Watkins and a flailing Alex Moreno before the former Hull player waited for Saman Ghoddos’ corner to reach him to poke home his first ever Premier League goal.

Villa began the second half beating at the door of a retrenched Brentford defence, a black-coated Emery twisting himself in knots on the touchline. And yet it was Wissa that had the best chance of the half’s opening 20 minutes, forcing another fine save from Martínez. That preceded the moment that turned the game into Villa’s favour. Frank, having just made a double substitution, was forced to rework his defence after Mee was red-carded, via VAR. His high tackle on the freshly arrived Bailey was a tactical foul to stop the forward escaping and over the ball, raking into the Jamaican’s shins.

Frank’s rage turned yet more purple when Maupay, another arrival, looked to be baulked by Konsa and yet neither the referee, David Coote, nor the VAR, Craig Pawson, deemed the challenge worthy of a penalty.

It was Bailey who brought Villa back into the game, his chipped ball finding Moreno at the back post to nod in, as tensions began to boil over the sidelines, Frank taking exception to the actions of Austin McPhee, Villa’s set-piece coach. That it was a subsequent corner bringing Villa their winner will only have added to the agitation. This time, Ramsey took it, and Kamara’s back-heel found Watkins to nod in and celebrate in front of fans only too happy to barrack their former striker before a melee took place on the goalline. Villa’s dream lives on though does so bad-temperedly.