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.
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