Danny Ings opened his account for the season to help Aston Villa produce one of the narrow football results of the weekend in the Premier League. Ings opened the scoring in the 31st minute before Emi Buendia came off the bench to double their advantage. A Lucas Digne own goal in the 87th minute ensured a nervy ending for the visitors who eventually held on for the three points.
Player ratings
Aston Villa: Martinez (7), Cash (7), Carlos (7), Mings (8), Digne (6), Kamara (7), McGinn (7), Ramsey (8), Coutinho (7), Ings (8), Watkins (8)
Subs: Buendia (8), Bailey (6), Konsa (n/a), Chambers (n/a), Young (n/a)
Everton: Pickford (6), Holgate (6), Coady (6), Tarkowski (6), Patterson (6), Doucoure (5), Iwobi (6), Mykolenko (6), Gray (5), Gordon (6), McNeil (5)
Subs: Davies (6), Rondon (6), Onana (6), Alli (6)
Man of the match: Ollie Watkins
Managers Reaction
Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard: “I think it was one of the strongest performances [since I came to the club] in terms of control and positional play. We had some nervy moments [at the end] because we lost our focus. I thought we deserved that external criticism, the level of performance was not where it should be but what we did was stay calm. We asked the players to deliver a response and I think we got that. The fans were fantastic and you saw the response from the team.”
Everton boss Frank Lampard: “I thought there was some good and some bad to the performance. It was a pretty even game apart from the transitional goals. The overriding feeling is that we shouldn’t lose as we created two or three good chances at the end. It is a shame we have not picked up something from the first two games. The feeling that we are going to score goals is not there,” he said of the youngsters who are deputizing. We have Dominic coming back in a few weeks. It is clear that missing that focal point of the team will affect you. Salomon came on and showed that he can bring that focal point.”
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