Aston Villa star shows his class with 'brilliant' Newcastle United claim

Aston Villa star Leon Bailey has labelled Newcastle United "a brilliant team" after their 3-1 win at Villa Park.

The Magpies claimed only their second Premier League away win in 2023-24 to end a run of four straight defeats. They also inflicted a first home defeat on Aston Villa for nearly 12 months to put a small dent in their Champions League qualification push.

Centre-back Fabian Schar scored twice in the first-half before an own goal by Alex Moreno made it 3-0 just after half-time.

Bailey was introduced off the bench on the hour-mark and sparked an immediate response when he set up Ollie Watkins goal. Bailey and his teammates threatened a comeback, not least when Watkins had another goal ruled out for offside, but Eddie Howe's side managed to hang.

"I couldn't tell exactly why it was missing tonight,", said Bailey. They [Newcastle] are a brilliant team. They play good football and have a brilliant structure. They were on it from the first moment and made us work a lot.

"Scoring two goals early gave us a lot of pressure to come back from. They played better than us and they deserved to be two goals up. But in the second half, being Aston Villa, there were hopes of getting an early goal and they got it."

Both of Schar's goals came via a Kieran Trippier corner. The first was directly turned home by the Swiss international while the second was cleared to only as far as Anthony Gordon, whose shot deflected onto crossbar before allowing Schar to poke home the rebound.

Bailey added: "That's a part of their style of play as well. They have big players and are very good set-pieces. We tried to work on our set-pieces but we didn't get it right today. We have to accept that and move on.

"I wouldn't say the level has dropped. This is football. You have City who win games back to back and Arsenal and teams like that and you have times where things don't go your way and the other team is better than you on the day.

"We just have to bounce back and focus on the games coming up to turn things round. We have to accept the loss and bounce back."

Villa remain fourth in the Premier League table, 11 points above Newcastle in seventh. Howe hopes the win at Villa Park can galvanise their season ahead of Saturday's home meeting with Luton Town.