Conor Gallagher's impressive goal saves Chelsea's draw at Aston Villa | first division

Mauricio Pochettino criticized Chelsea's weak centering after a heavy defeat in midweek, but they showed some courage to recover from a two-goal deficit and earn a creditable home draw. Aston Villa. Noni Madueke dragged Chelsea back into contention just after an hour before Conor Gallagher, seemingly inspired by the captain's armband, placed the top corner with a beautiful shot with nine minutes of normal time remaining. Axel Disasi then thought he had scored the winning goal for Chelsea in added time, but it was disallowed after VAR ruled out a push from Benoît Badiashile on Diego Carlos.

Unai Emery hit the spotless red turf in front of the home bench after Morgan Rogers scored Villa's second goal in the 42nd minute, but his evening ended in frustration. Ollie Watkins avoided a rare opening in the second half, firing close to the penalty spot with a couple of minutes remaining. Villa can only hope they don't see this draw as a costly slip-up in the race for the top four.

“Birmingham, are you listening to the song we are singing?” was sung a little louder by the boisterous Villa supporters after they took an early lead. No surprise, given their arch-rivals risk dropping out of League One next weekend, while Villa are close to playing in Europe's top competition for the first time since being knocked out of the European Cup in the quarter-final against Juventus in 1983, a year after lifting the trophy in Rotterdam. Villa has been so impressive this season, and Chelsea so fragile, that there was no surprise in the half-time score. “Villa is serious about Emery.”

Pochettino knows that, such is the nature of the job, the blame invariably falls at the coach's door, but this week he emphasized that the finger must also be pointed elsewhere. The pressure is on co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali and co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, who have assembled a dysfunctional and unbalanced team at a cost of £1 billion. Injuries haven't helped, but that mitigation has a limit. Here Pochettino named five teenagers and two goalkeepers on the bench, with Disasi, one of three changes, the odd one out at 26. Trevoh Chalobah, Thiago Silva and Cole Palmer, after a reported illness, returned to the Chelsea starting lineup.

After the Arsenal beating on Tuesday, Pochettino tried to react but his team was losing with less than four minutes left. Villa moved the ball from right to left and Pau Torres advanced to spot Lucas Digne on the overlap. Digne cut a low cross towards John McGinn, whose first shot bounced off Marc Cucurella, under pressure from Watkins, and past Djordje Petrovic. Emery punched the air, Pochettino slapped his thighs in frustration.

Petrovic was getting the ball out of his net again in the 42nd minute when Rogers fired inside the Chelsea goalkeeper's near post to deepen Pochettino's misery. Rogers collected Matty Cash's pass on the edge of the area, slid inside Chalobah and sent a precise strike through the defender's legs and into the bottom corner.

Aside from Nicolas Jackson heading Cucurella's shot against the post, Chelsea struggled to penetrate the hosts in a one-sided first half. Earlier, VAR disallowed Jackson's equalizer for offside after Moisés Caicedo lofted a pass over Villa's high line. Pochettino did not celebrate and Torres and Ezri Konsa seemed confident in perfecting their distances. Replays showed Jackson was gone too soon.

The hosts were forced to make a change at half-time, with Emiliano Martínez replaced by Robin Olsen in the Villa goal due to a hamstring problem. Chelsea needed to trouble Olsen more than they tested Martínez and Madueke always seemed the most likely to do so.

He swerved wide of the post after superbly controlling Palmer's cross-field ball with the outside of his right boot as it flew down the right before entering Digne. Silva saw a header cleared by Cash and then, with 63 minutes on the clock, Chelsea pulled one goal back, Madueke scoring after Conor Gallagher harried Douglas Luiz.

Madueke celebrated by grabbing the badge on his shirt and from there Chelsea went from strength to strength, Gallagher tying with a peach.