Aston Villa came from a goal behind to defeat a wounded Chelsea 2-1 at Villa Park, securing their first home win in the Premier League since January 4th.
The away side took the lead in the opening 10 minutes of the game courtesy of Enzo Fernández, who tapped home for his fourth goal of the season.
Villa equalised in the 60th minute when Marco Asensio met Marcus Rashford’s pass across goal. The two combined again in the dying moments of the game to win the match, as Asensio doubled his tally following a catastrophic mistake from Filip Jörgensen.
As it happened
Two out of form teams met at Villa Park looking to put their past woes aside and give their European qualification hopes a vital boost. Villa failed to hold on to secure three points in their midweek clash against league leaders Liverpool, stretching their winless run in the Premier League to five matches.
Chelsea, meanwhile, had only won three of their last 10 matches in the league and were comfortably beaten by Brighton last time out. With both Unai Emery and Enzo Maresca desperate for a win, the question was: who would come out on top?
Chelsea started the better of the two sides. Their first chance came within two minutes as Pedro Neto, who was operating as a striker, made a sharp run in behind but had his effort blocked by Tyrone Mings on the recovery.
Five minutes later and the Portuguese international was involved again to set up Chelsea’s opener. Neto drifted out wide this time and found himself in a more familiar position on the right flank. He used his burst of pace to ease past Ian Maatsen and flashed the ball across for Fernández who knocked it into an empty net.
Embed from Getty ImagesChelsea were in full control, preventing Villa from gaining any sort of momentum. They almost doubled their lead in the 18th minute, but Fernández could only flick his header wide from Cole Palmer’s wicked cross.
Eventually, Villa managed to threaten their opponents half way into the first half. Morgan Rogers played a cute pass into Asensio, allowing the Spaniard to drive at the Chelsea defence. He played it into Ollie Watkins who, from a tight angle, could only drill his effort straight at the Chelsea goalkeeper. Moments later, Watkins took a snap-shot at goal but was denied again as Marc Cucurella blocked his shot.
The game started to open up and both teams looked dangerous going forwards. For Chelsea, Enzo Fernández was at the heart of everything; he had an effort curl just over the bar before setting up Christopher Nkunku, who also cut in from the left to whip a shot that was easily saved by Emiliano Martínez.
At the other end, Watkins was the danger man for Villa, as they searched for an equaliser before the interval. He marginally failed to make contact with a cross minutes before having an effort crash into the side netting.
The second half started less energetically than the first half ended. It took until just before the hour mark for super-sub Rashford to spark Villa’s revival. He made a searching run to the back post and was found by Matty Cash. The cross had nearly been intercepted by Malo Gusto but managed to find it’s way to Rashford, who poked the ball across for Asensio to bundle in Villa’s equaliser. The goal was initially ruled out for offside but VAR intervened to give Marco Asensio his first goal in the Premier League.
Embed from Getty ImagesWith 75 minutes on the board, Chelsea created their best chance of the second half. Moisés Caicedo played a lovely weighted pass into the stride of Palmer. As Martínez rushed out and slipped, Palmer couldn’t get the ball out of his feet and his shot in the end was tame, allowing Ezri Konsa time to recover to clear it.
Villa then completed their comeback in the 89th minute thanks to the combination of Rashford and Asensio (and a blunder from Jörgensen). Following a short corner, Rashford fizzed in a cross to Asensio who volleyed it at goal. It should have been a comfortable save for the Chelsea goalkeeper, but he let it slip under his arms to hand Villa the three points.
Unai Emery’s men are now up to seventh place and will be buoyed following two impressive performances at home against strong opposition. Chelsea remain in sixth place but are only a point off the Champions League places.
The lineups
AVI: Martínez; Maatsen, Mings, Konsa, Cash; Tielemans, McGinn; Ramsey, Asensio, Rogers; Watkins
CHE: Jørgensen; Cucurella, Colwill, Chalobah, Gusto; Fernández, Caicedo, James; Nkunku, Neto, Palmer