Aston Villa boss Unai Emery hailed the resilience of his players after our 4-3 comeback win over Brighton on Wednesday night.
Villa found themselves 2-0 down inside the opening half hour, with Jan Paul van Hecke putting the hosts ahead before an unfortunate own goal from Pau Torres doubled their lead.
However, our comeback began prior to the half-time break with Ollie Watkins bagging a double, and goals from Amadou Onana and Donyell Malen after the interval helped us on our way to securing all three points.
There was a nervy finish as van Hecke scored his second of the night with around 10 minutes remaining, but Villa held on to make it six consecutive wins as we moved up to third place in the standings.
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Unsurprisingly, Emery was full of praise for his players having fought back to secure all three points, as we showed great resilience and character to find a way to win and keep our impressive form going.
He also hailed both Watkins and Marco Bizot who were decisive to the outcome, with the former back amongst the goals in a huge boost for him and the team, while the latter produced a superb late save to preserve our lead as he recovered from an early mistake which led to the first goal of the game.
“A very tough match,” he said, as quoted by BBC Sport. “How we started and reacted is more like the season. The players reacted and continued with our game plan to never give up. We kept the mentality and the resilience, really fantastic.
“Our first three matches were much worse. The first goal was not a corner, I think. We conceded and then we were expecting a lot in the
“We reacted to scoring one goal and we started the game plan and they followed it. We are so thankful for the supporters- 4,000 of them with us here from Birmingham.”
On Watkins: “Keep going. He needs those goals, he needs calm. He needs to keep going and get balance and he got it.
“Marco is a very, very good goalkeeper. he is always ready to play like today. Martinez was not ready to play and had some pain in his back. Marco is ready and he saved us with one good save in the 90th minute.
“The table is very important for us. We know how difficult it is. We needed to work hard and perform. We will play on Saturday against Arsenal at home. The teams behind us are going to push a lot. Be humble because we know how difficult it is to face teams in the Premier League.”
It’s been an incredible turnaround from Villa in recent months, and in this game alone, but such is the mentality and drive of Emery, the focus of the group will quickly switch to Arsenal this weekend to keep our good form going, and a seventh win on the bounce in the league would close the gap on the pace-setting Gunners, while continuing to establish our position in the chasing pack behind them.