3-0 win for Aston Villa comes all but easy against Brighton | OneFootball

It wasn't smooth sailing for Aston Villa. Unai Emery led his side into the American Express Stadium and left with the full three points. After a controversy-filled 90+ minutes, Villa beat Brighton 3-0. At 48 points, it was enough to then surpass their Premier League opponents on the day.

As mentioned, it wasn't the cleanest or prettiest of showings. The hosts controlled large portions of the match and truthfully could have scored on multiple occasions, even having one disallowed. While the VAR worked in that instance, the visitors did enough to take advantage of the chances that they forged for themselves and then held on to see out the clean sheet victory.

A frustrated Emery did find a brief moment to nearly give a smile when Marcus Rashford broke the deadlock, however. On a beautiful long ball, perfectly weighted and into the path of the forward by Morgan Rogers, the Spaniard nearly allowed himself a smile.

And no one would have blamed him. It was a great goal that stemmed from a simple rollout from Emiliano Martínez. Roughly 15 seconds later, the ball was in the back of the net. This was the third goal by Rashford in two games for AVFC and his first in the Prem for the Midlands side.

Then it was Matty Cash's turn. He supplied excellent service down the right-hand side from the back. This too found Rogers, and he set up Marco Asensio for the comfortable 2-0 lead. Deep into the ten minutes of stoppage time, which was likely making up for the lack of stoppage time in the first half, Asensio grabbed himself an assist. His pass to Donyell Malen was the first time the Dutch international scored for his club and completed the 3-0 scoreline. This provided the second smirk from Emery on the day, who had earned himself a yellow card and was likely happy to get one more in as a further act of defiance.

Nearly turned drastically different for Aston Villa

The point of contention came around the 37th minute when Jacob Ramsey juked Jack Hinshelwood and was stopped by a hanging leg in the penalty area. Not only did it not result in a kick from the spot, but it was not even enough to warrant a check. The Brighton defender was already on a yellow. And the 0-0 scoreline at the time could have ended differently for the visitors.

As is, Villa still won by a comfortable margin. Emery, however, will know that in many ways his side was fortunate. In truth, it was Martinez who was the busier of the two keepers, and before Asensio came on, the attack and midfield in general lacked much-needed organization. Still, after taking a lot of time away from club football duties and playing a good side away from Villa Park, Aston Villa can feel good about getting the desired result. Expect, however, a certain Spanish manager to be focused on the areas that need to be cleaned up.