Fulham 1-3 Aston Villa: Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins and an Issa Diop own-goal steer Unai Emery’s side to victory – as both sides finish with 10-men as Joachim Andersen and Jaden Philogene see red

With the game level after the break, the cameras panned to none other than Jhon Duran warming up on the sidelines.

When you need a goal, who better to call upon than the Colombian who went into this game averaging a goal every 46 minutes in the Premier League this season.

But there is a reason why despite all the noise, Ollie Watkins remains Unai Emery’s man up top.

On the hour mark, his bullet header gave Aston Villa the lead and from there, the visitors never looked back.

Aston Villa soundly beat Fulham after a calamitous performance from the west London hosts

Villa’s Morgan Rogers levelled the scores between the teams four minutes after Raul Jimenez’s fifth-minute opener 

It was his 150th senior goal on his 400th senior appearance and for the boy from Torquay who has made the journey from non-league prodigy to national hero, make no mistake that this enthralling battle with Duran will only push him to constantly raise standards.

Five minutes later, his movement and first touch was the reason why Fulham went down to ten men when Joachim Andersen was sent off and five minutes after that, an own goal from Issa Diop doubled Villa’s lead and all but sealed the three points.

Three points that looked unlikely when Fulham had a penalty on the half-hour mark to take the lead that Andreas Pereira missed after Morgan Rogers’s deflected effort had cancelled out Raul Jimenez’s opener.

With the job done, Emery took Watkins off for Duran with 15 minutes to go – no doubt to wrap his main man in cotton wool before Villa welcome Bologna in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

After two consecutive draws, victory here took Villa back into the top four and confirmed their best start to a Premier League campaign after eight games since 1998-99.

For Villa, the good news started pre-match when both Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara stepped off the team coach as part of the travelling party for the first time in 434 and 251 days respectively after suffering ACL injuries.

Mings wasn’t ready to be in the squad yet but both Ezri Konsa and John McGinn were back on the bench alongside Kamara while Jacob Ramsey and Andre Onana returned to the starting eleven after injuries.

Fulham were without Sasa Lukic, who injured himself while on international duty with Serbia, and in came Emile Smith-Rowe for Marco Silva’s 150th game as Fulham boss.

It was a dream start for Silva’s men when just five minutes in, Bernd Leno hoofed one down the middle of the park and Pau Torres made a mess of dealing with it, with Jimenez getting in behind him and firing a left-footed strike past Emiliano Martinez for his fourth goal in five games.

Fulham’s Raul Jimenez opened the scoring in the fifth minute to give the hosts the lead

Both Marco Silva (left) and Unai Emory (right) have to deal with suspensions to key players

The defending was schoolboy and Villa were fortunate to draw level four minutes later when Rogers’s strike from outside the box took a wicked deflection off Calvin Bassey and completely wrong-footed Leno.

Fulham went up the other end and should have restored their advantage a minute later but Jimenez somehow headed wide from Pereira’s corner, before Rogers fired wide from inside the box.

By now, there was a basketball feel about this clash and on the 18th-minute mark, Leno made a brilliant stop to deny Watkins who only had the keeper to beat.

The entertainment didn’t stop there. Just before the half-hour mark, Darren England initially didn’t award a penalty to Fulham for a handball by Matty Cash after Jimenez tried to head the ball down in the box, but VAR deemed that Cash’s arm was in a unnatural position and the referee overturned his decision.

Up stepped Pereira – despite Jimenez taking and scoring Fulham’s last penalty – and it was a shocking attempt that was comfortably held by Martinez who dived low to his left, much to the delight of the Villa fans behind his goal.

Emery’s men should have gone into the break with the lead however when Youri Tielemans found Watkins, who crossed for Rogers but with half the net empty, the 22-year-old somehow side-footed wide.

There was time for another golden chance too with Jimenez heading over from a few yards out on the brink of half-time.

It was Villa who started stronger after the break, with Leno forced to make a good reflex save when Andersen nearly poked one into his own net and on the hour mark, they took the lead.

Tielemans’s corner was met by a rifle of a header from Watkins, who used Smith-Rowe’s contact to leap up and get his fifth goal in five games.

Fulham’s Joachim Andersen was sent off for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity in the second half

Leno had no chance. No team has scored more goals from set-pieces than Aston Villa’s four this season.

Andersen was then sent off for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity when Watkins got in behind him and was bundled down, before Lucas Digne’s cross was bundled in by Diop.

A needless late red card for Jaden Philogene put a slight dampener on Villa’s afternoon on the Thames but all in all, this was a hard-fought and deserved victory for Emery and co.