Aston Villa 0-1 West Ham United

Aston Villa suffered a 1-0 defeat to West Ham United courtesy of Pablo Fornals’ heavily deflected second-half strike at Villa Park.

The Hammers man saw his long-range effort clip the leg of the unfortunate Ezri Konsa and loop over Emi Martínez in the 74^th minute.

It proved to be the only goal of a clash in which Villa dominated the first period without finding a crucial breakthrough, Konsa seeing his strike ruled out by the officials, with the Hammers posing a greater threat after the interval.

Villa, who have won one of their last 13 meetings against West Ham stretching back to 2013, travel to Arsenal next up in the Premier League on Wednesday.

Steven Gerrard made two changes from Villa’s midweek Carabao Cup victory at Bolton Wanderers, Konsa and Matty Cash returning in place of Tyrone Mings and Ashley Young, the former missing out due to illness and the latter named among the substitutes.

Villa came close to opening the scoring after 13 minutes as Ollie Watkins’ fierce strike was deflected narrowly wide by Kurt Zouma.

And they went even closer from the resulting corner as Lucas Digne’s cross was headed against the near post by Philippe Coutinho and Konsa poked home the rebound, only for the assistant referee to flag Digne’s set-piece had swung out of play.

The hosts again threatened shortly afterwards as Douglas Luiz’s dangerous free-kick was diverted just over by Gianluca Scamacca.

Villa were dominating proceedings but unable to find their way through a well-organised Hammers rearguard, Coutinho testing Lukasz Fabianski from distance as the encounter ended goalless at the break.

Villa were indebted to some superb defending from Cash and Digne in the 56^th minute as they raced back to thwart Jarrod Bowen following a swift Hammers counter-attack.

Martínez saved comfortably from Scamacca just after the hour mark as the visitors posed more of a threat going forwards in the second period.

Head coach Gerrard turned to Emi Buendía and Jacob Ramsey off the bench in the 66^th minute.

But it was West Ham who made the breakthrough as Fornals’ long-range strike deflected off Konsa and looped over Martínez.

Substitute Leon Bailey curled off target and Ramsey tested Fabianksi as Villa searched for a leveller but to no avail.