Matt Maher analysis: Stunning Aston Villa success shows the giant really is stirring
Even before kick-off Unai Emery was proclaiming this match a big one in Villa’s season.
It sure felt like it.
After a somewhat jumbled start to the campaign, where mostly decent league results have jarred against the odd shocker and a couple of cup stumbles, here came beautiful clarity.
Villa 6 Brighton 1 was the kind of afternoon to set supporters dreaming maybe, just maybe, Unai Emery’s team really are going to live up to the pre-season hype. Those banners hanging on the Trinity Road gates, proclaiming the giant to be awake, may be no mere marketing slogan.
Villa’s biggest league win for nearly three years – and their largest with supporters in the ground since 2018 – sent them soaring over Brighton in the table, a three-point and eight-goal deficit reversed in little more than 100 minutes of football. A statement delivered in the most stunning of styles.
The finest victory of Emery’s reign to date was driven by one of the best performances by a Villa centre-forward in recent memory.
