BirminghamWorld reporter Charlie Haffenden reacts to Aston Villa's narrow 1-0 victory away at Brentford in the Premier League, courtesy of Ollie Watkins' second-half strike.
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00:00Aston Villa have just claimed a huge 3 points in the race for Europe with a 1-0 win away at Brentford.
00:06Crucially a victory but also a clean sheet, just the 4th in the last 28 games across all competitions for Unai Emery's men.
00:13And Robin Olsen was the man between the sticks.
00:16Emi Martinez injured before this game, unable to travel with the squad.
00:20And then Olsen coming in for a rare appearance, a rare start for Aston Villa.
00:24I think Villa fans were pretty concerned when they saw him in the line-up because with all due respect to Olsen,
00:29he has conceded a lot in his prior appearances, 28 goals in his last 12 matches for Villa in fact.
00:35So for him to keep a clean sheet is a fantastic achievement.
00:37And he put in a really good performance, making 3 or 4 really important saves throughout the match.
00:41Also making quite a few key claims when Brentford were firing lots of crosses into the area.
00:46There was one cross that he failed to handle towards the end.
00:49And then there was one moment at the start when he picked up a disastrous back pass.
00:52There were cheers for an indirect free kick from the home support but he got away with that one.
00:57I think otherwise a fantastic performance, so a big shout out to Olsen.
01:00But Oli Watkins was the match winner against his former club.
01:03He absolutely loves scoring here. I think the home fans don't particularly appreciate it.
01:07We saw that last season, we saw that the season before that as well.
01:10Watkins doesn't care, scoring the only goal of the game.
01:13And it was a fantastic strike, albeit a little bit fortuitous.
01:16He came on from the left-hand side, Jacob Ramsey played him down there, quite a simple pass.
01:20Watkins had all the time in the world to think about it.
01:24He dribbled about 5-10 yards and then struck quite fiercely towards that near-bottom corner.
01:29It did take a bit of a wicked deflection and then Mark Flecken in goal, unable to keep it out
01:33as the ball slipped between him and underneath his body.
01:36I think Brentford fans would be saying he should have done a bit better with that one.
01:39But with the deflection, I think maybe giving a little bit of the benefit of the doubt there.
01:43But quite a cagey game this one on the whole, really could have gone either way.
01:46Brentford had two big penalty shouts denied.
01:49Axel Desassi, who I've given as my man of the match in my player ratings,
01:53which you should check out on BirminghamWorld.uk.
01:56He twice potentially got away with one when he was nudging over Kevin Sharder.
02:01The first one, not really Desassi's fault because Matty Cash clattered into Desassi.
02:05A bit of a skittle effect as Sharder went down.
02:08The second one, maybe a little bit more at fault from Desassi as he was a little bit clumsy.
02:12But it's not a good enough one where you overturn it for the referee.
02:15Not clear enough for VAR to intervene.
02:17And in the end, Jared Gillett's decision stood.
02:20Keane-Lewis Potter also hit the underside of the post for Brentford.
02:23Thomas Frank's side getting very close to scoring that equaliser towards the end.
02:27But Unai Emery's men held on in the end.
02:29Desassi, as I mentioned, maybe giving a man of the match.
02:32And then describing two near penalties he gave away.
02:35But he's actually imperious throughout this match, as was Tyrone Mings.
02:39The pair of them heading everything away, making some very critical sliding challenges.
02:44You've got the likes of Brian Mbuemo and Johan Wisse bearing down your necks.
02:48And they were able to deal with them very effectively and stop them from scoring at all here at the GTEC Community Stadium.
02:54So it's three huge points.
02:56Villa now just two points outside the top four, as I record this, up into seventh.
03:00And it seems as if the Champions League fight might well truly be on once again.