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Aston Villa continued their pre-season preparations with a comfortable 3-1 victory over Indonesia All Stars in Jakarta. Unai Emery’s side controlled much of the contest at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, while Alejandro Garnacho made his first appearance for the club.

Villa made the perfect start when Emi Buendia opened the scoring after only three minutes. Kosta Nedeljkovic found the midfielder inside the penalty area before Buendia calmly swept his finish beyond Kartika Ajie.

Indonesia All Stars threatened when Hokky Caraka struck the post, but Villa doubled their advantage shortly before half-time. Ross Barkley collected possession on the edge of the area and drilled a left-footed effort into the net.

ReadAstonVilla covered the game in full in our Indonesia All Stars 1-3 Aston Villa match report, including Garnacho’s encouraging debut and Villa’s control of the contest.

Emery made ten changes at the interval as he continued to spread minutes around his squad. The alterations did little to disrupt Villa’s rhythm, with Brian Madjo making it 3-0 after 55 minutes following good work from Luka Lynch and Alysson.

The hosts pulled one back late on after James Wright saved the initial effort but could not prevent the rebound from being converted. However, Villa comfortably saw out the closing stages to secure another useful pre-season victory.

There were also promising signs from Garnacho on his debut. The winger looked confident attacking from the left and could have marked his first appearance with a goal had Buendia picked him out shortly before half-time.

Emery was particularly encouraged by what he saw from his changing squad. Speaking after the game, the Villa boss said he was “really optimistic” about the rebuild, with ReadAstonVilla covering his exciting ‘new chapter’ message to supporters.

For Villa, the 3-1 win represented another useful step towards the new season as Emery continues integrating new players and assessing several academy prospects.