Aston Villa achieved their first win at home in five months on Wednesday night.
Ahead of facing Newcastle United on Saturday, Unai Emery and his players with a morale boosting six goals in the Champions League.
Difficult to tell just how much of an upturn in form this was though, Villa expected to easily beat Fenerbahce despite their struggles in the Premier League so far this season.
Their Premier League form has seen Aston Villa only win against Tottenham and they almost threw that away after going 3-0 ahead, Spurs almost grabbing a point but the game ending 3-2. Otherwise, Villa in the league have lost to Brighton, Forest and Arsenal, whilst drawing with Hull and Brentford.
Newcastle United’s summer target Manzambi set them on their way with a deflected goal on 12 minutes, Jackson adding two more before the break. Barkley then scored twice in the second half before Abraham wrapped it up with the sixth in the 90th minute.
As limited as Fenerbahce are, it is interesting to drill down into the stats from last night’s match.
They back up the idea that Aston Villa deserved to win but they make clear that this wasn’t some supremely dominant performance by Emery’s side. The Turkish side had more possession (55% v 45%) and no clear dominance with other stats for Villa. Aston Villa did have more shots (20 v 15), more corners (9 v 7), more touches of the ball in the opposition penalty area (27 v 24), but clearly this was a very open match with Newcastle United able to take plenty of encouragement from the fact that a weak Fenerbahce side still controlled a fair bit of the match. The expected goals stats of 3.07 v 1.90 point to this as more of a 3-2 (or a 6-4…) match than a 6-0.
All eyes now on St James’ Park on Saturday for the 5.30pm kick-off.