Unai Emery might want to question Aston Villa’s survival chances the next time he rants. On the back of his claims that they should not really be good enough for the top five, his players wore the look of title contenders.
Not many will come to St James’ Park and win without concession. In fact, they are the first to do so in the Premier League this season. They did it with a performance of authority, flair and, when needed, a mean streak of resistance. Light feet, dark arts.
Tired after a Thursday night return from Turkey? You would have thought they’d been there for a cosmetic pick-me-up. They were technically and tactically superior to Newcastle. They were more mature in their game management and, in Emiliano Buendia and Morgan Rogers, they had a pair with whom Eddie Howe’s side could not cope. They were the livewires whose current was too buzzy for the hosts, who flatlined in game where a win would have returned them to the top five.
Buendia scored a superb first-half opener and, even though it took until the 88th minute for Ollie Watkins to make sure of the win, it never really felt in doubt. Can they win the league? Emery says ask him again after 35 matches. In the absence of the manager’s verdict, his team screamed yes! That is how impressive they were here.
From back to front – Emiliano Martinez to Watkins – Villa played with a swagger. Newcastle, in the final third at least, played with a stagger. For the first time this season they have failed to score in back-to-back Premier League games.
Another stat that should have the medical team working through the night on Bruno Guimaraes’ sore ankle is that, in four years, this was an 11th top-flight game without him in the starting XI and an 11th without a win. They missed their inspirational captain, his drive and desire from midfield.
Emiliano Buendia opened the scoring for Aston Villa against Newcastle with a superb strike
Ollie Watkins added Villa’s second after 88 minutes to secure all three points at St James’ Park
Yet, had the Brazilian been present, there is no guarantee he would have found a way beyond Amadou Onana, the steel who serves the silk of Buendia and Rogers. This was a game in which Newcastle could have done with the latter pair, in order to get around the former. Howe was asked if it was time for his club to find a No.10 in the mould of the Villa duo.
‘When you lose a game, everyone wants to change something,’ he said. ‘We have the players that we have, and we have to find a solution with those players. There’s no point me thinking we need another type of player at this moment, because it’s not going to happen. The next chance we’ll really have to change the squad will be the summer.
‘I don’t think we played badly, but certainly around the goal, we could have done better. We still created chances that, on another day, I think we score.’
The first of those may have altered the course of the afternoon had it gone in. Howe had challenged Sandro Tonali to score more goals this week. The midfielder almost had his first of the season inside 38 seconds.
Three of those seconds were spent chopping between three Villa jerseys but his shot, from 10 yards, was kept out by the toes of Martinez. It set the tone for a strong home start that would last only 10 minutes. After that, Villa took control.
Buendia and Rogers were too clever, too skilful and too quick during a period in which the visitors looked like the home side and deservedly took the lead on 19 minutes. Moments earlier, Newcastle needed Nick Pope to deny Watkins after a Malick Thiaw error allowed the striker a run on goal. But Pope had no answer for Buendia’s dipping, devilish strike from 20 yards, for which Rogers was the provider with a first-time tee.
Buendia had started from the left but Emery, identifying a hole between Newcastle’s midfield and defence, told his players to populate it. Suddenly, they had three No.10s fizzing around Watkins, Jadon Sancho joining the party from the right. By comparison, Newcastle’s Yoane Wissa was playing as if stranded on an island. Their wide players, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes, played too wide and, when they did deliver, those balls were either wayward or decent but without takers.
Wissa occasionally had some company and Lewis Miley would have equalised with a six-yard header just before the break had Martinez not extended his fingertips to claw clear.
Unai Emery’s Villa side are the first to win away at Newcastle’s in this season’s Premier League
It was the last save he had to make and, despite a raft of home changes in the second half in which Nick Woltemade and Anthony Elanga replaced the disappointing Wissa and Gordon, nothing really changed. Villa were the better side and Watkins got his goal when peeling away unmarked to turn in from Lucas Digne’s cross.
The victory moves Villa level on points with Manchester City in second, with an 11-point cushion to sixth. They are far better than Emery lets on.
