BIRMINGHAM (Reuters) -Aston Villa beat Bournemouth 3-0 at Villa Park on Saturday to move provisionally into the top half of the Premier League table thanks to goals from Douglas Luiz, Jacob Ramsey and Emiliano Buendia.
The result allowed Villa to leapfrog Chelsea into 10th place with 38 points ahead of the London side’s match against Everton.
Bournemouth remain in the relegation zone with their third loss in four games, dropping to 19th with 24 points after Leeds United moved up to 14th with a win at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“The performance will be viewed worse because of the result, but at 1-0 we were right in the game and had created chances. We pushed on and were punished. It was not good enough today,” Bournemouth boss Gary O’Neil told Match of the Day.
“The players will respond. They’ll be disappointed because we had situations where we should have done better… We weren’t outclassed. It wasn’t a 3-0 game and it slipped away.”
Villa made the ideal start seven minutes into the contest when Leon Bailey pounced on a loose ball in the box, beat his marker out wide and cut the ball back for an unmarked Luiz to tap home from close range.
Bournemouth reacted well and probed for an equaliser but Villa felt aggrieved when VAR did not award a penalty on two occasions for handball, with Jack Stephens involved in both.
At the other end, Argentine goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez came to Villa’s rescue when he palmed away Philip Billing’s free kick that looked destined for the top corner, with the World Cup winner flying to his right to deny the Danish midfielder.
There was applause from both sides when David Brooks came on for the first time since October 2021 after recovering from cancer, but it was the Villa fans who remained on their feet a minute later as Ramsey scored.
Neto denied Tyrone Mings after a flowing Villa move at the death but the Bournemouth keeper could do nothing when the defender nodded the ball from a corner kick into the six-yard box where Buendia headed home from close range.
“I needed that goal for my confidence, I’ve not scored in a long time. Most importantly was the three points,” Ramsey said after his first goal since November.
“Four unbeaten, the last two wins at home in front of a bigger crowd. I think our ambition this season was to push into the top half and get to eighth or ninth spot, but we’ve still got to beat a lot of teams.”
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in BengaluruEditing by Toby Davis)
