LONDON (Reuters) -Aston Villa came from behind to beat Fulham 3-1 in a highly entertaining Premier League clash at Craven Cottage on Saturday in which the home side missed a penalty and both teams had a man sent off.
Villa’s win extends their unbeaten run to six league games, and puts them fourth in the standings on 17 points while Fulham remain ninth on 11 after they fell to a second successive defeat.
“Very proud of our mentality here. At the moment we are getting good results,” Villa manager Unai Emery said.
“Even when Fulham had a penalty and scored first, we focused together.”
Fulham were in front after five minutes through Raul Jimenez but Villa were level four minutes later after a shot from Morgan Rogers took a wicked deflection. Andreas Pereira then had his spot kick saved and the sides were level at the break.
Ollie Watkins put Villa ahead just before the hour mark and things went from bad to worse for Fulham as first, Joachim Andersen was sent off and then Issa Diop scored an own goal.
The home side took the direct route to open the scoring, with keeper Bernd Leno playing a long clearance which found Jimenez in chase.
Jimenez held off his marker Pau Torres before controlling the ball on his chest and shooting from just inside the area into the bottom corner off the post for his fourth league goal of the season.
Villa were quickly back on level terms when Rogers struck a speculative shot from distance with plenty of Fulham bodies ahead of him and his effort took a deflection off Calvin Bassey which wrong footed the keeper.
“They scored in the first five minutes, but we knuckled down after that and we dominate pretty much most of the game,” Rogers said.
“It was massive to respond how we did so quickly.”
Fulham had the perfect chance to retake the lead when a handball by Matty Cash was punished with a penalty kick, but Pereira’s weak effort was comfortably saved and held by Emiliano Martinez.
The visitors went in front in the 59th minute when Watkins’ glancing header from a corner on the edge of the six-yard box left Leno with no chance and found the roof of the net.
Fulham’s chances of a comeback worsened when last man back Andersen pushed Watkins over as they raced for the ball and was shown the red card and five minutes later they found themselves 3-1 down.
Diop had only been on the pitch a matter of moments when he knocked a cross from Lucas Digne into his own net, and Villa had little problem in holding onto their lead despite a late sending off for Jaden Philogene.
In a game which pitted an unbeaten home record against an unbeaten away record, it was Villa who maintained their impressive run.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Christian Radnedge)
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