Aston Villa come from behind to beat Crystal Palace 3-1 in a frantic ending at Villa Park this afternoon.
Odsonne Edouard gave the visitors the lead moments after the break, but a relentless Villa fought back in the closing stages, scoring the equaliser in the 87th minute and grabbing another two in stoppage time to extend their winning record at home to nine consecutive matches.
The hosts impressive run of form at Villa Park began with a 1-0 win over this same opponent back in March this year, and since then, Villa had only let in two goals at home while smashing in 18 themselves.
Palace would have come into this fixture with mixed feelings as their record at Villa Park in recent times has been far from impressive, having only won one of their last 11 visits to the venue.
It was one-way traffic for most of the first half, and Ollie Watkins received a gift inside the first 20 minutes as a misplaced back pass put him through one-on-one with the keeper, but Sam Johnstone came up with a big save to keep the match level.
Unai Emery’s men were clearly the better side in the first half-hour of the match and thought they had taken the lead when Diaby found the net in the 33rd minute, but the goal was ruled out as offside after a VAR review.
From then on, Villa piled on the pressure leading up to the break, but it was Palace that took the lead less than two minutes after the restart as Jean-Philippe Mateta got in behind Pau Torres to set up Edouard, who slotted away the chance after a slip by Emiliano Martinez.
With Roy Hodgson absent due to health reasons, Palace’s gameplan became evident after the goal as they sat in and looked to catch their opponents on the counter-attack, but they were almost pegged back when a scramble in the box led to Watkins hitting the upright with a quarter of an hour left to play.
The Villans were behind with three minutes to go in an absorbing encounter and finally found their equaliser five minutes from time with a thunderous left-footed strike from Moussa Diaby off a pin-point Digne cross to set up a grandstand finish.
And a grandstand finish it was, as Watkins got on the end of a through-ball in stoppage time and was brought down by Chris Richards inside the box, which the referee deemed a foul, and while VAR felt that it was worth another look, Darren England stood by his decision to award Villa a penalty.
Douglas Luiz stepped up to convert the spot kick to give his side the lead, and as Palace threw caution to the wind, they were caught out at the back just moments after going behind, with Leon Bailey tapping in the third from three yards out.
While it was a late and dramatic comeback, the final scoreline was probably a little harsh on Palace, but the performance by Villa would have been exactly what Emery would have hoped for as they head into their Europa Conference League encounter against Legia Warsaw in midweek.
