Once the level of play was up after the break, the cameras panned to none other than Jhon Duran warming up on the sidelines.
When you need a goal, who better to call on than the Colombian who has averaged a goal every 46 minutes in the Premier League this season?
But there’s a reason why, despite all the noise, Ollie Watkins remains Unai Emery’s man at the top.
On the hour mark his ball header gave Aston Villa the lead and from then on the visitors never looked back.
Aston Villa defeated Fulham convincingly after a disastrous performance by the west London hosts
It was his 150th senior goal in his 400th senior appearance and for the boy from Torquay who has made the journey from non-league prodigy to national hero, make no mistake, this enthralling battle with Duran will only push him to raise the standards to continuously increase.
Five minutes later, his movement and first touch were the reason Fulham were reduced to ten men when Joachim Andersen was sent off. Five minutes later, an own goal from Issa Diop doubled Villa’s lead and all but sealed the three points.
Three points that looked unlikely when Fulham were awarded a penalty after half an hour to take the lead which Andreas Pereira missed after Morgan Rogers’ deflected effort had canceled out Raul Jimenez’s opener.
With the job done, Emery Watkins switched to Duran with 15 minutes to go – no doubt to wrap his main man in cotton wool before Villa welcomed Bologna to the Champions League on Tuesday night.
After two successive draws, victory here moved Villa back into the top four and confirmed their best start to a Premier League season after eight games since 1998-99.
For Villa, the good news started before the match when both Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara left the team coach for the first time in 434 and 251 days respectively as part of the traveling party after suffering cruciate ligament injuries.
Mings was not yet ready to be part of the squad, but both Ezri Konsa and John McGinn were back on the bench alongside Kamara, while Jacob Ramsey and Andre Onana returned to the starting XI after injuries.
Fulham were without Sasa Lukic, who injured himself while on international duty with Serbia, and Emile Smith-Rowe came in for Marco Silva’s 150th game as Fulham boss.
It was a dream start for Silva’s men as Bernd Leno smashed one through the middle of the park inside five minutes and Pau Torres made a mess of it, with Jimenez getting in behind and firing a left-footed strike past Emiliano. Martinez for his fourth goal in five games.
Fulham’s Raul Jiminez opened the scoring in the fifth minute to put the hosts ahead
The defender was a schoolboy and Villa were fortunate to draw level four minutes later when Rogers’ strike from outside the penalty area took a poor deflection off Calvin Bassey and completely wrong-footed Leno.
Fulham went the other way and should have restored their lead a minute later, but Jimenez somehow headed wide from Pereira’s corner, before Rogers shot wide from the penalty area.
By now there was a basketball feel to this game and in the 18th minute Leno made a brilliant stop to deny Watkins who had only the keeper to beat.
The entertainment didn’t stop there. Just before the half-hour mark, Darren England initially did not award a penalty to Fulham for a Matty Cash handball after Jimenez tried to head the ball into the penalty area, but VAR ruled that Cash’s arm was in an unnatural position and the referee overturned his decision .
Pereira stepped up – despite Jimenez taking Fulham’s final penalty and scoring – and it was a shock effort that was comfortably held by Martinez who dived low to his left, much to the delight of the Villa fans behind his goal.
However, Emery’s men should have gone into half-time with the lead when Youri Tielemans found Watkins, who crossed for Rogers but with half the net empty, and the 22-year-old somehow side-footed wide.
There was also time for another golden chance, with Jimenez heading over from a few yards out on the edge of half-time.
It was Villa who started stronger after the break, with Leno having to make a good reflex when Andersen almost put one into his own net and they took the lead on the hour mark.
Tielemans’ corner was met by a header from Watkins, who used Smith-Rowe’s contact to pounce and score his fifth goal in five games.
Leno didn’t stand a chance. No team has scored more goals from set pieces this season than Aston Villa’s four.
Andersen was then sent off for being denied a clear goalscoring opportunity when Watkins got in behind him and was tied up, before Lucas Digne’s cross was bundled in by Diop.
An unnecessary late red card for Jaden Philogene put a slight dampener on Villa’s afternoon on the Thames, but all in all this was a hard-fought and deserved victory for Emery and co.
