Villa 3-1 Sevilla: Garnacho scores in Puerta Trophy

Villa 3-1 Sevilla was the final score in the Antonio Puerta Trophy. Three Villa goals in just 12 minutes turned the game around. Sevilla had led after the break through Isaac Romero, only for Aston Villa to score three times before the home side could settle.

Ross Barkley levelled, Alejandro Garnacho put Villa ahead and Max Jenner added the third, turning a losing position into a comfortable win. The fixture is played each year in memory of Antonio Puerta, the Sevilla academy graduate who died in 2007, and Sevilla marked the occasion by paying tribute to Unai Emery before kick off.

Villa 3-1 Sevilla: how it happened

Romero broke the deadlock in the 62nd minute, according to BBC Sport, finishing a move that put Sevilla in front. Sevilla’s goal briefly looked like it would settle the contest. Villa needed a response, and they found one fast.

Barkley’s equaliser came first. Garnacho then turned the game on its head with a finish of his own, and Jenner completed the turnaround soon after. Three goals inside 12 minutes left Sevilla with no way back. Garnacho had started alongside Taylor Harwood-Bellis, and his goal capped a sharp spell in front of goal for Villa’s front line.

Our full report on the match carries the fuller picture of how the win was built, and the match report from Read Aston Villa covers the same spell in detail.

The expert angle: three goals in 12 minutes changes the picture

Going from losing to winning rarely happens this fast, even in a friendly fixture, and that is why the detail matters here. Villa were behind with half an hour to go and ahead with time to spare. The identity of the scorers says something too.

Garnacho getting on the scoresheet in a Villa shirt carries weight for Emery, and Jenner’s goal shows Villa have more than one route to winning a game once the first plan stalls. The Villa 3-1 Sevilla result will not count in any table, but rallying from behind against a club of Sevilla’s pedigree is a useful marker this early in the season.

There was context beyond the scoreline too. Sevilla paid tribute to Emery before kick off, a reminder of what he built there: three successive Europa League wins in a Sevilla shirt before he moved on. Puerta died in August 2007 at the age of 22, according to BBC Sport, after a cardiac arrest during a La Liga match against Getafe. Sevilla, his boyhood club, honoured the man now managing their opponents. That gave this friendly a weight no ordinary scoreline could carry.

What happens next

There is no shortage of fixtures ahead for Emery’s squad. Villa are midway through a stretch of nine games in 30 days, a run examined in Emery’s schedule test, and a friendly win like this one offers minutes and momentum rather than any guaranteed change in approach.

The pattern here, a slow start followed by a rapid turnaround, echoes Villa’s 3-1 Carabao Cup win over Coventry City, detailed in the Coventry cup win. Villa won that game by scoring in a cluster rather than spreading goals across 90 minutes. Off the pitch, interest in Morgan Rogers’ future, covered in the Rogers transfer angle, continues to run alongside the football, though nothing from this result changes that story either way.

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