Brentford 1-0 Aston Villa: Villa fall at Dean Smith’s return to Brentford

For Dean Smith, it was a bit of a homecoming. This mid-week trip for Aston Villa down to London to visit Brentford, the team that Smith managed for the first chunk of matches this season before coming to the Villa.

The first half was mainly dominated by Brentford, in terms of possession. Villa defended well, and only gave up a couple of half-chances, if anything.

Arguably, the best chance of the first half came against the run of play in the 43rd minute as Albert Adomah took a nice first touch past the defense and through on goal, but his driven shot on the ground just trickled wide of the net.

The second half was more of the same, with a little bit more from Villa early on, but still not really maintaining any sort of possession in the attacking third.

The best chance for Villa surely came when a counter attack broke through Ahmed Elmohamady, who squared the ball to Conor Hourihane for a one on one with the keeper, but the keeper stood strong in the 67th minute.

A few penalty shouts for both sides were consistently waved off by the referee, and again, the only chances other than the two one on one’s for Villa came for Brentford.

In the first of four added minutes, the man who had the majority of the chances for the hosts, Neal Maupay, dances past Tommy Elphick and slots a shot past Tyrone Mings and Lovre Kalinic and into the top corner to take all three points.

Villa miss out on any of the three points and return home after a quick turnaround, and face West Brom at Villa Park on Saturday.

UTV