Aston Villa soar up to seventh with 1-0 win at Brentford

National World - LocalTV

BirminghamWorld reporter Charlie Haffenden reacts to Aston Villa's narrow 1-0 victory away at Brentford in the Premier League, courtesy of Ollie Watkins' second-half strike.

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00:00Aston Villa have just claimed a huge 3 points in the race for Europe with a 1-0 win away at Brentford.

00:06Crucially a victory but also a clean sheet, just the 4th in the last 28 games across all competitions for Unai Emery's men.

00:13And Robin Olsen was the man between the sticks.

00:16Emi Martinez injured before this game, unable to travel with the squad.

00:20And then Olsen coming in for a rare appearance, a rare start for Aston Villa.

00:24I think Villa fans were pretty concerned when they saw him in the line-up because with all due respect to Olsen,

00:29he has conceded a lot in his prior appearances, 28 goals in his last 12 matches for Villa in fact.

00:35So for him to keep a clean sheet is a fantastic achievement.

00:37And he put in a really good performance, making 3 or 4 really important saves throughout the match.

00:41Also making quite a few key claims when Brentford were firing lots of crosses into the area.

00:46There was one cross that he failed to handle towards the end.

00:49And then there was one moment at the start when he picked up a disastrous back pass.

00:52There were cheers for an indirect free kick from the home support but he got away with that one.

00:57I think otherwise a fantastic performance, so a big shout out to Olsen.

01:00But Oli Watkins was the match winner against his former club.

01:03He absolutely loves scoring here. I think the home fans don't particularly appreciate it.

01:07We saw that last season, we saw that the season before that as well.

01:10Watkins doesn't care, scoring the only goal of the game.

01:13And it was a fantastic strike, albeit a little bit fortuitous.

01:16He came on from the left-hand side, Jacob Ramsey played him down there, quite a simple pass.

01:20Watkins had all the time in the world to think about it.

01:24He dribbled about 5-10 yards and then struck quite fiercely towards that near-bottom corner.

01:29It did take a bit of a wicked deflection and then Mark Flecken in goal, unable to keep it out

01:33as the ball slipped between him and underneath his body.

01:36I think Brentford fans would be saying he should have done a bit better with that one.

01:39But with the deflection, I think maybe giving a little bit of the benefit of the doubt there.

01:43But quite a cagey game this one on the whole, really could have gone either way.

01:46Brentford had two big penalty shouts denied.

01:49Axel Desassi, who I've given as my man of the match in my player ratings,

01:53which you should check out on BirminghamWorld.uk.

01:56He twice potentially got away with one when he was nudging over Kevin Sharder.

02:01The first one, not really Desassi's fault because Matty Cash clattered into Desassi.

02:05A bit of a skittle effect as Sharder went down.

02:08The second one, maybe a little bit more at fault from Desassi as he was a little bit clumsy.

02:12But it's not a good enough one where you overturn it for the referee.

02:15Not clear enough for VAR to intervene.

02:17And in the end, Jared Gillett's decision stood.

02:20Keane-Lewis Potter also hit the underside of the post for Brentford.

02:23Thomas Frank's side getting very close to scoring that equaliser towards the end.

02:27But Unai Emery's men held on in the end.

02:29Desassi, as I mentioned, maybe giving a man of the match.

02:32And then describing two near penalties he gave away.

02:35But he's actually imperious throughout this match, as was Tyrone Mings.

02:39The pair of them heading everything away, making some very critical sliding challenges.

02:44You've got the likes of Brian Mbuemo and Johan Wisse bearing down your necks.

02:48And they were able to deal with them very effectively and stop them from scoring at all here at the GTEC Community Stadium.

02:54So it's three huge points.

02:56Villa now just two points outside the top four, as I record this, up into seventh.

03:00And it seems as if the Champions League fight might well truly be on once again.

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