Villa's ugly route to comeback victory was MOR than enough

ASTON Villa are on a tear after claiming their sixth win in seven Premier League games on Sunday, beating Leeds United 2-1 at Elland Road.

- By JOHN TOWNLEY

Trailing to Lukas Nmecha's early opener, Donyell Malen flashed the ball towards the near post just after the restart, where Morgan Rogers turned it in to level, and the forward then completed the comeback by firing in a stunning free-kick.

Leeds thought they had scored an equaliser shortly after, but VAR identified a Dominic Calvert-Lewin handball following Daniel James’ ball across goal.

Here are the talking points...

After what was an ugly first half, it felt like it would take a couple of moments of individual class for Villa to turn it around.

Villa were slow as a team, and the pitch was cutting up too, making it a difficult watch for the first 45 minutes.

It came as no real surprise that Malen’s introduction helped spark the revival, as his ball across the face of goal was turned in by Rogers. A burst of pace and unpredictability was exactly what Villa needed to level the game just moments into the second half.

Leeds were fully up for the fight in the first half, and Villa frankly didn’t match them at first. John McGinn took a few whacks for his troubles in that opening period, but few of his teammates followed suit.

That changed in the second half, with the likes of Boubacar Kamara and Youri Tiele-mans ending the game having won 19 duels between them.

Ross Barkley also deserves praise for the impact he has had over the last two matches scoring against Bournemouth and winning the free-kick that led to Rogers’ goal at Leeds on Sunday.