England defender Guehi has been heavily linked with a move to Liverpool before Monday’s transfer deadline but he put aside that speculation with the stand-out moment of a superb Palace display at Villa Park.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez was not involved amid rumoured interest from Manchester United and his replacement Marco Bizot had a night to forget.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman conceded the penalty from which Jean-Philippe Mateta gave Palace a 21st-minute lead and was then beaten by Guehi’s curler and a close-range header from Ismaila Sarr in the second half.<\/p>\n
That emphatically ended Villa’s 19-game unbeaten home league run and, to compound their frustration, they are now the only side in the top five divisions of English football yet to score a goal.<\/p>\n
Villa had actually made a strong start with Youri Tielemans heading over from a corner but Palace held firm and soon took control.<\/p>\n
Their opening came after 20 minutes as the brilliant Guehi, not looking at all unsettled, found Mateta with a superb ball.<\/p>\n
The Frenchman then played in Daichi Kamada and the Japan international looked to have the beating of Bizot until the keeper stuck out a leg and tripped him.<\/p>\n
There was little dispute over the subsequent penalty decision and Mateta calmly rolled the ball into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n
Villa tried to respond quickly and summer signing Evann Guessand, making his home debut, thumped a shot at Dean Henderson but Palace looked comfortable.<\/p>\n
Guehi’s name was loudly chanted by the visiting fans and the centre-back found time to acknowledge them with brief applause.<\/p>\n
It was not until the closing stages of the first half that Villa threatened again as Ollie Watkins latched onto a long punt upfield from John McGinn but he shot straight at Henderson.<\/p>\n
Villa raised the tempo after the break but a Tielemans shot was punched away by Henderson and the keeper then got down low to turn away a deflected Morgan Rogers effort.<\/p>\n
Palace had to reorganise when the influential Adam Wharton was forced off injured in the 56th minute, a blow that might also be felt by England coach Thomas Tuchel having named the midfielder in his latest squad.<\/p>\n
Palace weathered the storm and Guehi produced a moment to savour on 68 minutes.<\/p>\n
He brought the ball forward and was still on the edge of the box when a poor Ezri Konsa clearance rolled into his path. He quickly set himself and bent a fine shot beyond the reach of Bizot and into the top corner.<\/p>\n
If it does prove his sign-off, it was some way to say goodbye.<\/p>\n
Things then got worse for Villa as Wharton’s replacement Jefferson Lerma launched a long throw into the area and Maxence Lacroix flicked on for Sarr to head home at the back post.<\/p>\n
That prompted an exodus of Villa fans but some stayed and made their annoyance clear at the final whistle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England defender Guehi has been heavily linked with a move to Liverpool before Monday’s transfer deadline but he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[4699,5000,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-35691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-aston-villa","9":"tag-crystal-palace","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}