Unai Emery and Fabian Hurzeler in disagreement after Aston Villa 2-2 Brighton

Emery and Hurzeler both felt their teams should’ve taken home all three points after a tense four-goal thriller unfolded at Villa Park on Monday night.

Neither Villa or Brighton were particularly happy with the draw as it left both sides several points adrift from the Premier League top seven to round off 2024.

The Seagulls were the better team initially and took advantage as Simon Adingra netted the opening goal 13 minutes in, but Villa looked dangerous for the result of the first period, extended by 12 minutes of injury time for a host of lengthy stoppages.

Ollie Watkins’ penalty restored parity for the hosts before Morgan Rogers handed Villa a 2-1 lead just after half time, drilling into the far corner following a delicate Watkins pass. Brighton improved as the second half went on, however, and eventually sourced an equaliser through Tariq Lamptey.

Hurzeler, perhaps affected by recency bias given his players’ late push for a winner, believes Albion deserved the victory.

“At Villa Park you have to defend good and I don’t really remember chances or big chances for Villa,” the German head coach said in the post-match press conference.

“When you come back you should be happy but I think we deserved more, we were the better team, created more chances, controlled the game, dominated them and then conceded an easy goal and then we lost the momentum a bit after half time.”

Vexed at the nature of Villa’s first goal, a penalty awarded for Joao Pedro’s foul on Morgan Rogers after goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen was blocked, Hurzeler added: “In the end you can give the pen but you can’t not give the foul on Bart. When it continues like this, you see it every weekend the blocking of the goalkeeper.

“If the Premier League doesn’t find a clear rule it will end in a different sport. In a normal game when a player is blocked when the ball is not near from him it’s always a foul so I don’t understand why it’s not a foul, they have to find an answer.”

Unai Emery disagrees with Fabian Hurzeler

Emery - with a polar opposite mindset to Hurzeler - was adamant Villa should’ve earned all three points based on how the game played out. The Spaniard was impressed by his team’s desire to fight back and get ahead but was disappointed to concede in the final quarter of an hour for the eleventh time this season.

“The point was not enough for how we played after the first goal,” Emery insisted. “Of course, how we conceded the first goal was very easy, it was a big mistake because we started lower in our rhythm collectively and conceded one goal. But of course, then we corrected it and got progressively better.

“We scored one goal, we created chances, we started not conceding a lot of them and the second half we started well, creating chances to score. But after we didn’t do it, they were trying with their changes to get more. They got their goal but after it even we were again pushing and created the last chance.

“I think we deserved to win, we played more or less in the same form as the recent matches at home. But sometimes it’s not enough like tonight. We have to accept it and overall how we are finishing the first part of the season, we have to be proud of everything we did.”