Aston Villa got back to winning ways in the Premier League on Monday evening thanks to a comfortable 2-0 win over Newcastle at Villa Park.
Steve Bruce returned to Villa Park quietly confident that he could get one over on his former team, but Newcastle were poor and he would not have had much ground for complaint if his team returned north having conceded three or four goals.
Villa had most of the ball in the opening thirty minutes, but they were struggling to create clear cut chances as Newcastle were defending with everyone behind the ball. In fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was still the international break and that Newcastle were San Marino or Andorra in disguise.
With 31 minutes on the clock, Jack Grealish won a free-kick on the edge of the box. A neat routine between Grealish and Conor Hourihane saw the latter curl the ball into the net.
Four minutes later, Grealish won another free-kick on the edge of the box. This time, Hourihane swung the ball in and Anwar El Ghazi was there to make it 2-0.
Villa dominated the second-half as well, but couldn’t add to their score. Ezri Konsa had a header well saved by Martin Dubravka and then Wesley hit the ball straight at Dubravka late on when it looked like it would have been easier to score.
Overall though, Newcastle offered very little and didn’t deserve to get anything out of the game.
Here are our Villa player ratings for Monday’s match:
