Analysis: Nervy but Aston Villa keep clocking up the wins

Having previously threatened to let both Fulham and Nottingham Forest into matches they had been dominating, they did precisely that by letting slip a two-goal advantage at Luton.

Yet when Lucas Digne then headed an 89th-minute winner, it merely confirmed Emery’s men as the ruthless, serial winners they are.

No matter the method, no Villa team has done it better since the last one to win the league in 1981.

This was their 32nd victory in 52 Premier League matches under Emery and their 17th in 27 games this season. With 11 matches still to play, they are well on course to surpass the mark of 21 wins achieved by Graham Taylor and Ron Atkinson’s respective runners-up. The latter’s 1992-93 vintage, it should be noted, had four games more to reach that total.

Digne’s winner was the fourth Villa have scored in the 85th minute or later this season and they have earned 11 points thanks to goals netted beyond that point.

It is a big reason they find themselves today with a five-point cushion inside the top four and 11-point advantage over sixth-placed Manchester United.

In a race for Champions League football guaranteed to have a few more twists and turns before the finish, a draw at Kenilworth Road would not have been a complete disaster.

But it sure would have felt like one, such was Villa’s superiority in a first half where Ollie Watkins scored another two goals and only a series of fine saves from home keeper Thomas Kaminski prevented Emery’s men netting four or five.

The second half was very different and two goals in the space of six minutes from Tahith Chong and Carlton Morris looked to have earned the hosts at least a point before Digne had the final say to snatch all three.

It is what good teams do. Just ask Liverpool.

Rather than seeing their advantage over fifth-placed Tottenham trimmed to just three points ahead of the latter’s visit to Villa Park next Sunday, they maintained their cushion. With each passing week and each passing win, destiny is that bit much firmer in their grasp.

Of course, just because Villa are motoring on does not mean you can ignore the warning lights flashing on the dashboard. Until Digne’s late intervention, Saturday looked like being a case of Villa failing to heed the warnings from those prior wobbles against Fulham and Forest.

With the fixture list which now gets markedly tougher, they cannot afford to keep being so charitable.

While a run of four wins from five matches is impressive, all have been against teams in the bottom half of the table, including three in the bottom five. Villa now play five of their next six games against teams in the top 10.

Set-pieces continue to be a concern, at least at one end of the pitch. When Watkins opened the scoring by heading home Leon Bailey’s 24th-minute corner, it made Villa the first team in Europe’s top five leagues to score 20 from set-plays.

If only they were quite so good at defending them. Both of Luton’s goals came from dead-ball situations, with Chong’s strike the 10th they have conceded from a corner, the top flight’s joint-worst mark.

In open play, meanwhile, you wonder how much the absence of Boubacar Kamara is impacting their ability to see matches out without a fuss. Villa have won all three games since the French midfielder was lost for the season to injury, thanks in no small part to sterling performances from skipper John McGinn.

Yet the Scot is not quite the same player and the loss of Jacob Ramsey, excellent during the 29 minutes he was on the pitch at Kenilworth Road, also had a negative effect on Villa’s control. The England under-21 international, already sidelined twice this season due to foot injuries, left the ground wearing a protective boot.

It was Ramsey who forced Kaminski into his first save of the match with a curling effort before Watkins then took centre stage, scoring twice in 14 minutes to set a new personal best Premier League return of 16 goals in a season. The striker and Villa’s ambitions, needless to say, do not end there.

Watkins’ form has rarely dipped below very good since Emery first arrived, yet rarely has he looked quite so good as in the past month, during which he has scored six times in six league games. Just four more will see him become the first Villa striker since Peter Withe to net 20 in a top-flight campaign, while he is already the first since Dwight Yorke to score 15 in consecutive seasons.

It is alongside Yorke and Christian Benteke where he now sits as one of Villa’s finest strikers of the Premier League era.

Watkins was also involved in the build-up to the winner, though much of the credit must go to Moussa Diaby, the £43million record signing,, who came off the bench to deliver his most significant contribution in months with a peach of a cross on to the head of Digne.

The latter, also part of a quadruple 79th-minute change, became the 13th different Villa player to score in the league this season. At a point of the campaign when Emery’s squad will be tested once more by the return of European football, that also felt significant. Just when you think Villa might be about to falter, they keep finding a way.