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Aston Villa opened their Premier League campaign with a 1-0 home victory over 10-man Sheffield United, with Ezri Konsa netting the winner after Emiliano Martinez denied the visitors with a first-half penalty save.<\/p>\nAston Villa opened their Premier League campaign with a 1-0 home victory over 10-man Sheffield United, with Ezri Konsa netting the winner after Emiliano Martinez denied the visitors with a first-half penalty save.<\/p>\n
Villa were playing with a man more than their opponents from the 12th minute when Blades captain John Egan was shown a straight red card having been deemed to have denied Ollie Watkins a goal-scoring opportunity.<\/p>\n
But it took a great stop from debutante Martinez to prevent them from falling behind in the 36th minute as the summer signing from Arsenal kept out John Lundstram\u2019s spot-kick.<\/p>\n
Konsa then headed home in the 63rd minute, having been teed up by fellow defender Tyrone Mings.<\/p>\n
While Dean Smith\u2019s Villa celebrate a winning start, the result leaves Chris Wilder\u2019s Sheffield United pointless after two matches.<\/p>\n
Martinez was one of two players in the Villa starting line-up making their debut for the club, along with full-back Matty Cash, while there was a league bow for record-signing striker Watkins.<\/p>\n
Wilder made three changes from his team\u2019s 2-0 loss to Wolves a week earlier, with forward Oliver Burke among those coming in, for his league debut.<\/p>\n
Cash was involved early on as he lofted a delivery to John McGinn, whose effort went off-target.<\/p>\n
The visitors were then reduced to 10 men when Egan was red-carded by referee Graham Scott after tussling with Watkins as the striker attempted to latch on to a long ball forward from Mings, the decision standing after a VAR check.<\/p>\n
As Villa attempted to take advantage, United \u2013 who replaced David McGoldrick with Ethan Ampadu around the half-hour mark \u2013 dealt well with the pressure that was applied, with Aaron Ramsdale having little problem collecting a Douglas Luiz header.<\/p>\n
The visitors were then handed the a golden chance to take the lead after Chris Basham went down in the box following a tackle from Matt Targett and Scott pointed to the spot.<\/p>\n
Once another VAR check had been completed, Lundstram stepped up to take the penalty \u2013 and saw his effort from 12 yards pushed away in fine style by Martinez.<\/p>\n
Conor Hourihane subsequently sent a shot into the stand in the 41st minute, and Watkins headed too high 10 minutes into the second half.<\/p>\n
Eight minutes later Villa made the decisive breakthrough as Targett\u2019s corner was flicked on by Mings and Konsa headed past Ramsdale.<\/p>\n
The hosts\u2019 subsequent attempts to add a second saw Jack Grealish send a couple of efforts wide, with Trezeguet and McGinn doing likewise.<\/p>\n
But there was no further addition to the scoring and Smith\u2019s team were up and running at the first time of asking.<\/p>\n