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Aston Villa bounced back from their heavy opening-day English Premier League defeat by cantering to a 4-0 home win against Everton.
Captain John McGinn and Douglas Luiz’s penalty gave Villa a 2-0 lead at the break and after second-half efforts from Leon Bailey and substitute John Duran, Unai Emery’s side put last week’s 5-1 loss at Newcastle behind them.
It was all too easy for Villa as they cashed in on some wayward Everton defending, which prompted half of their fans to leave Villa Park long before the final whistle.
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was happy skipper McGinn had scored “because he doesn’t usually score a lot”.
“He can play right side, left side, play inside. He’s very important for us. Last week he didn’t play well, but today was amazing.”
Everton have lost their opening two games for the second successive season and their cause was not helped by the first-half withdrawal of the luckless Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
The England striker, who scored only two goals last season after being dogged by injury, failed to recover from an early clash of heads with Villa goalkeeper Emi Martinez and was eventually forced off in the 38th minute.
James Ward-Prowse set up two goals on his West Ham debut on Sunday and Lucas Paqueta scored a late penalty as the 10-man Hammers somehow secured a 3-1 win over Chelsea.
Ward-Prowse, the 30 million pound ($A60 million) signing from Southampton, created goals for Nayef Aguerd and Michail Antonio, either side Carney Chukwuemeka’s equaliser.
But Mauricio Pochettino’s expensively assembled Chelsea side will wonder how on earth they came away from the London Stadium empty-handed.
Enzo Fernandez missed a penalty and West Ham had to play the final 25 minutes a player down after Aguerd saw red.
Yet not only did David Moyes’ side cling on for a first win of the season, they wrapped it up in stoppage time with Paqueta’s spot-kick.
Ward-Prowse is renowned for his ability from set-pieces but surely not even Moyes could have expected such an immediate impact.
Seven minutes in and from his second corner in a claret and blue shirt, Ward-Prowse swung in a cross which Aguerd nodded in unmarked at the far post.
Chelsea have now conceded a goal in each of their last 13 matches, their worst run since 1996.
© AAP
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