Aston Villa came from a goal down to beat Bournemouth 3-1 on Sunday, with strikes from Morgan Rogers, Moussa Diaby and Leon Bailey helping them strengthen their grip on fourth place in the Premier League.
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With the top four in England’s top flight all qualifying directly for the group stage of next year’s Champions League, the win means Villa have 66 points after 34 games, six more than Tottenham Hotspur, who has two matches in hand.
With Villa inviting Bournemouth to press and insisting on playing out from the back, there were a few scary moments in the early exchanges, with Justin Kluivert forcing a fine save from Emi Martinez in the 16th minute.
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The visitors then took the lead when Villa defender Matty Cash brought down Milos Kerkez and the referee immediately pointed to the point, and Dominic Solanke slammed the penalty past Martinez for his 18th league goal of the season.
Villa equalized just before the break with a superb breakaway goal, Rogers collecting a superb pass from Bailey and running into the box before cutting inside and firing the ball high into the net.
Shaking off fatigue after qualifying for the Europa Conference League semi-finals with a penalty shootout win over Lille on Thursday, Villa came out blazing in the second half, with striker Ollie Watkins scoring 19 goals until present this season, become playmaker.
He first teed up Diaby with a superbly weighted pass to give the home side the lead in the 57th minute, and 21 minutes later Bailey wrapped up all three points after Watkins found him in the second post for a simple rapprochement. finishing of the range.
