Brentford’s hugely encouraging start to the campaign continued as they earned a point against Aston Villa to stretch their unbeaten run further.
The Bees are fourth in the Premier League and have yet to taste defeat after six matches. They led early against Villa and then came from behind to earn a share of the spoils.
They were gifted a 10th minute lead when Villa’s Tyrone Mings cheaply gave the ball away, Brentford launched a quick counter and it led to Yehor Yarmoliuk firing home a fine strike from just inside the penalty area.
But that joy was short-lived as Unai Emery’s side quickly restored parity. Emi Buendia’s attempt was deflected into the path of Nicolas Jackson and he fired home coolly past Caoimhin Kelleher in the away goal.
Johan Manzambi came close for Villa shortly after, before Jackson fired wastefully over. The hosts were well on top going into the break but were denied by the brilliance of Kelleher as he kept out Jackson and then John McGinn in quick succession.
Chances after the interval were at a premium but Kevin Schade drew a good stop from Zion Suzuki in the Villa goal.
The hosts then went in front 13 minutes from time when McGinn’s tame shot took a deflection off Kristoffer Ajer and looped up and over Kelleher. But the tables were then turned, as time Brentford quickly snubbed out their opponents’ lead within two minutes.
Ajer atoned for his part in the second Villa goal as he motored forward, received the ball inside the box and struck past Suzuki to ensure spoils were shared.
Emery said afterwards: “To draw at home is not a good result. I think we played a match with a lot of things improved from our last home match against Forest. We created chances but conceded more chances than I expected.
“Maybe the result is fair but analysing how we are improving things, competing better I can’t tell nothing to the players about the match. We’ll try to analyse again how we can improve even more. A better match today than against Forest. Keep going forward. We tried, we pushed, we had chances but so did they. At the end we could’ve won, but also we could’ve lost.”
Keith Andrews reflected: “I am torn to be honest. I liked a lot today – spirit, grit, determination. There was evidence of rustiness which is understandable but I don’t like to use that as an excuse but the boys have been away for three weeks so it’s trying to find the balance.
“We’ve started well and we’re content with a lot of aspects of what we’re doing and how. We want to keep pushing hard and we are disappointed we could’ve played a bit better and maybe the result was there for us if we’d tidied up a few aspects of our game. Then it would have been a really good start to the season.”
