Aston Villa blow two-goal lead in 3-3 Brentford thriller

Birmingham World reporter Charlie Haffenden's thoughts after Aston Villa 3-3 Brentford in the Premier League.

Transcript

00:00 Aston Villa sensationally blew a two goal lead here at Villa Park to draw 3-3 with Brentford

00:06 in the Premier League. It's over to Tottenham Hotspur now, three points is the gap, two

00:11 games in hand for Spurs in the Champions League race. They play Nottingham Forest on Sunday.

00:16 It's really hotting up, another twist in this race, already very dramatic, the Champions

00:21 League fight getting even more so now. Villa, they just had to hold on, they had a two goal

00:26 lead. Ollie Watkins scored in the first half for the header, Morgan Rodgers getting his

00:30 first goal for the club, just 32 seconds into the second half, a great finish. But then

00:35 just nine minutes of calamitous defending, Pau Torres at fault for all of them out of

00:39 position, Diego Carlos not picking up his man, Esri Konza not getting out to Sergio,

00:43 Reguilon quickly enough. Reguilon, his crossing was just fantastic, his deliveries, his runs

00:48 down the left, getting to the byline, cutting it back. That's how all of the goals came.

00:53 There was one for Mbuemo, one for Wisse and one for Zanka as well. The first one for Zanka

00:57 was a bit of a missed kick after a Damsgaard missed kick as well. But it came from a Reguilon

01:02 cross and Pau Torres' positioning wasn't good enough, Diego Carlos wasn't in the right position

01:07 either and Konza should have pressed a lot quicker. He could have stayed the same for

01:10 the other two goals. Before you knew it, it was 3-2 to Brentford. I couldn't believe it

01:15 sat in the press box. He sat there writing an intro saying Villa have walked to a comfortable

01:20 2-0 win. All of a sudden, Brentford are 3-2 up. I think we were just as stunned as everyone

01:24 else in Villa Park. Completely silent in the home ends. The away end, meanwhile, Bedlam

01:29 over there, understandably, the Bs are enjoying a fantastic day out in Birmingham. But, Olly

01:34 Watkins, the man of the moment, scores again. About the 80th minute I believe it was to

01:39 make it 3-3. That's how it ended. A good header from a Leon Bailey cross got up well between

01:45 two Brentford defenders, beating Mark Flecken in the air to get Villa a point. Salvaged

01:50 a point right at the end. But, should it have been all three? Well, if it wasn't for that

01:54 10-minute spell, it would have been. But you've got to give a lot of credit to Brentford.

01:59 Thomas Frank obviously saw that the right-hand side of Villa's defence was a bit of a weak

02:03 point. Ezra Konza has been very good this season but sometimes when you've got players

02:08 getting in behind on the overlap, he does struggle a little bit. He might come inside

02:12 and doesn't quite get out quickly enough. That's what we saw here with Reguilon getting

02:16 a number of assists for Brentford this afternoon. Very impressive from them considering they're,

02:20 I wouldn't say in a relegation fight, but definitely right down there. Actually, to

02:24 be fair, with Luton getting a win today, a massive win against Bournemouth, you could

02:28 argue that Brentford are going to get sucked in now. So, a big point for them, a great

02:31 effort from them. Villa, though, disappointed as they head into a key run of fixtures. Douglas

02:36 Luiz at the end of the game. I couldn't believe it. The 97th minute he got to without getting

02:42 booked. He picks up his 10th yellow of the season. It's a tackle he had to try and make.

02:47 Brentford could have gone up the other end and scored but it was poorly timed and he

02:50 picked up his booking which means he'll now miss the game against Arsenal and AFC Bournemouth.

02:55 That's massive for Villa. At least he'll be fresh for the Lille games but that is a huge

02:59 blow to say the least.