This felt like the day Aston Villa’s faint title hopes were extinguished despite Tammy Abraham’s late equaliser against Leeds. Unai Emery’s side have won only once in their past four Premier League home games and fell short again to leave them seven points behind leaders Arsenal. They were punished for a sloppy opening 45 minutes when they failed to get almost anything right against their more aggressive opponents.
Anton Stach’s incredible free-kick looked like it would secure victory for Leeds until the 88th minute but it felt like another important step in their fight for survival.
The Premier League is Villa’s priority, sitting above the Europa League in the pecking order, but they are stuttering. For the remaining 11 games, the focus will be on holding off any charge from the teams sitting below them. They cannot continue to not turn up for 45 minutes at a time and need to find a cutting edge.
“It’s a good point,” Emery said. “We are setting our standards high, and sometimes we can become frustrated, because we are not achieving the same results with the same process, like today. But overall, our consistency is still there, and our demand is still there. And if we are third, it’s because we are being consistent and we are being demanding.”
