Drawing with Newcastle United wasn’t the start Unai Emery would have wanted to the 2025/26 Premier League season. The performance that underpinned it was far from ideal and, ultimately, a point is as much as he could have expected on the day.
Aston Villa must now kick on after a false start in the Premier League. Their first test away from home will be against Brentford on Saturday and Emery and the players will be mindful that expectations have been sharpened by dropped points last weekend.
The Bees have problems. That doesn’t make Villa guaranteed winners at the Gtech Community Stadium but it removes any excuses and mitigations from the equation. If more points are dropped in the second game, it would already go down as a substandard start.
Villa should go into the game confident of picking up a first win of the season. They have the better starting eleven and more stability. In Ollie Watkins they have a striker who has been prolific against his former club.
It’s there to be won. Anything short of that would be disappointing because of that fact.